Pavlov's Dog
by PsychGirl
Summary: Pairing: JimBlair Summary: Can Blair save the day? Or will the evil forces of the government succeed in controlling Jim and his senses?


**Disclaimer**: Sadly, they're not mine, they belong to Pet Fly and Paramount. Danny and Paul don't seem to mind when we play with them, and if Paramount sues me, I'm gonna claim fan fiction is covered under the First Amendment, and then countersue them and demand they release seasons two through four on DVD immediately.

**Warnings**: This story is slash (Jim/Blair). No likee, no readee. Seriously. Rated for language, mild violence, and implied sexual content.

My deepest thanks and appreciation to the terrific folks on the SenBetas list for their support and feedback: Travelin, Sheila, Marion, and T.W. Lewis. All mistakes within are consequently mine.

Thanks also to Jason and Rick for answering random odd questions (such as how **do** you do a cold tail?) and providing helpful feedback.

This is a sequel to "Catalyst". I'd recommend that you read that first, or some parts of this may not make much sense.

I do love getting feedback, so if you liked it (or even if you didn't) feel free to post a review, email me, whatever...

Takes place about a month after the end of "Catalyst".

* * *

"Say it…" 

Jim grinned to himself, stirring spaghetti sauce.

"Saaaay iiiiit….." Blair sang out.

Jim's grin deepened.

Blair's head popped around the entrance to the kitchen. Jim quickly composed his face into more serious lines. "Hey, Ellison," said Blair.

"Yeah?"

"I love you." Jim looked up. Blair was grinning mischievously, eyes dancing. Jim couldn't help but grin in response. He turned his attention back to the sauce.

"Hey, Sandburg," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Get your ass in the shower or you'll miss dinner." He looked up and met Blair's eyes with a smile. Blair laughed in response.

"I'm gonna get you to say it someday, Ellison." He sauntered off to the shower, humming.

In the weeks since they had become lovers, this had become a new game, Blair trying to get him to say "I love you". He hadn't consciously been trying _not_ to say it, but as things went on it had just become so much fun to tease Blair by thinking up alternative responses. _Besides_, Jim thought, _he knows how much I love him. I tell him so a dozen times a day, in a dozen different ways – with a touch, a look, a kiss, a smile_. _Yeah_, a part of his brain responded, _but sometimes people like to hear those words, even when they know. You like to hear it. Maybe he would, too_.

This line of thought was cut off by the phone ringing. Jim covered the sauce, wiped his hands, and picked up the receiver.

"Ellison."

"Jim, it's Simon. Brown has been called in for testimony tomorrow, so I need you to take over his stakeout."

"He wasn't supposed to be getting on the stand until next week…"

"There was a problem with one of the other witnesses and they had to move him up."

"Uh, okay, but I'm supposed to be prepping for the Jennings case tomorrow with the D.A."

"I'll call the D.A. in the morning and make your excuses, and I'll have someone bring the file by tonight. You can do some prep in your downtime." Simon paused. "Is that Sandburg…singing?" he asked.

Jim winced. Blair was bellowing "He loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah," at the top of his lungs in the shower. "Uh…yeah," he answered.

"Well, tell him not to quit his day job," Simon responded.

Jim grinned. "I'll pass that on, Captain, thanks." He hung up the phone and went over to the bathroom door. "Hey, Pavarotti, dinner in twenty." Turning his hearing up, he could hear Blair chuckle.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting down to dinner. "Oh, man, this looks really good," said Blair. They ate in silence for a while, and then there was a knock on the door. Jim went to answer it; it was the courier with the Jennings file. He lounged against the doorjamb, cigarette hanging insolently from his lips, while Jim signed for the file.

"You know," Jim said, handing the paperwork back to him and pointing at the smoldering thing in his mouth, "that shit will shorten your life."

The courier shrugged. "I'm a bicycle courier, man, how long do you think my life is going to be anyway?"

Jim saw him out and closed the door, shaking his head. He deposited the file on the coffee table and returned to their meal. "Ah, to be young and full of angst and despair," he said, chuckling. He dug into the spaghetti again, then looked up when he realized Blair wasn't eating.

Blair looked a little green.

Jim swallowed a mouthful of food. "Chief, what's up?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"Was…was that guy smoking?" Blair asked weakly.

"Yeah. Clove cigarettes, I think," Jim replied.

"Oh…" Comprehension dawned on Blair's face. "I had a bad experience with those once."

"You used to smoke?" Jim asked incredulously.

"No! No way, man. It's a conditioned response."

"Mind speaking English, Professor?"

"You know, like the dogs salivating at the bell?" At Jim's blank face, Blair gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't tell me you didn't take an intro psych class in college, man."

"Chief, that was a long time ago," Jim said, dryly. "All I remember from that class are those monkeys that were raised on wire mothers."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that one, that was horrible," Blair agreed. "But this experiment wasn't like that. This one was okay."

"Unless you're the dog," Jim said.

"No, seriously…Pavlov's dogs, man, you really don't remember?" Jim shook his head. "There was this Russian, Ivan Pavlov, and he discovered some really important things about associative learning. He won the Nobel Prize for it. He was the one that realized that if you pair a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a reflex reaction, eventually the neutral stimulus will elicit the reflex itself."

Jim shot him a glare.

"Okay, _for example_, Pavlov found that dogs would salivate when you show them food."

"Well, duh. They gave him the Nobel Prize for that?"

Blair rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. What he noticed was that, if you rang a bell just before you showed the dogs the food, eventually the bell alone would elicit the salivating, whether or not there was food present. I mean, not forever; eventually, if the dogs didn't get food, they wouldn't salivate anymore. But it taught us a lot about how animals – us included – can make associations between unrelated events."

"And dogs salivating relates to you and clove cigarettes how?" Jim had grasped the point of Blair's explanation a while ago, but he was playing dumb, because he enjoyed seeing Blair in 'teaching mode', and he didn't get to do it nearly often enough, not since the press conference. Jim wondered if he'd ever be able to think about that day without feeling that familiar twinge of guilt. But Blair was talking, and with effort, he brought his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"My first year at Rainier I had an awful case of food poisoning – I blame the freshman eating hall – and I had to go to the infirmary. I had to wait to be seen, for a couple of hours, and the nurse on duty smoked clove cigarettes. She didn't smoke them inside, of course, but she kept going outside for a quick break, and I could smell it, and it just got associated in my mind with how bad I felt. Now whenever I smell clove cigarettes I associate it with feeling sick." Although their conversation had improved Blair's color, Jim noticed that he still wasn't eating. He decided to try and change the topic of conversation and hopefully improve Blair's appetite.

"So, how much longer are you riding with Vice?" he asked.

"Through the end of this week. Then I've got a week off, then I start with Narcotics." He looked up at Jim, a wan smile on his face. "At least once I'm off Vice my schedule will be back to normal. No more being up all night and sleeping all day."

"And it's going okay?" Jim probed.

"Yeah. The guys are much cooler." Jim knew that he had had problems with Homicide – a couple of really bad crime scenes, plus some of the guys in Homicide had given him a lot of crap about the press conference, implying he'd never be able to testify in court as a cop. Blair rolled with it, but Jim knew that it bothered him. Most of the guys in Vice knew Jim, knew about Blair's work with Major Crimes, and were less inclined to harass him.

Jim covered Blair's hand with his own where it was resting on the table, rubbing his thumb across the back of his hand. "Hang in there, okay? It's not much longer, and then you'll be back with us."

"Yeah." Blair gave him a grateful smile, and then checked his watch. "I better get going."

Jim picked up the plates while Blair got his stuff together. He noticed that, despite his attempts, Blair had only eaten about half of his dinner, so he grabbed an apple from the bowl. When Blair came over to say goodbye, he tucked it in the pocket of Blair's jacket. "In case you get hungry later," he said.

"Thanks, Mom," Blair said, grinning, some of the mischievousness returning to his eyes.

Jim hugged him, taking in a deep breath of his scent. _This might be a nice time for those three little words_, said that part of his brain. "Blair…" he started. And then his throat locked up. Those three little words. He knew he felt them, knew them to be true…but he just couldn't get them out.

"Hmmmm?" said Blair, burrowing into his shirt.

"Be careful. See you in the morning." Blair hugged him tightly, then turned his face up. Jim gave him a long, lingering kiss. Blair sighed and headed out the door, looking back and waving goodbye at Jim over his shoulder.

Jim closed the door and went to clean up the dishes, disgusted with himself. _C'mon, Ellison, what is your problem? You feel that way, you act that way, you can't say three little words to the most important person in your life? They're not any different from any other three words in the English language. Flush the toilet. Pass the salt. Want a beer? I love you._

He'd always had difficulty saying those words, though. He hadn't heard them much growing up, with his mother gone. Emotional expression had not exactly been encouraged in the Ellison household. When he married Carolyn, he had thought it would get easier, but it hadn't. In fact, his inability to express himself had probably been one of the main areas of contention in their marriage. And it had surely contributed to most of the times things had gotten really screwed up between himself and Blair, sometimes with catastrophic results.

Maybe he had some kind of conditioned response, like those dogs. He couldn't deny that pretty much every time he'd either heard those words or said them, the outcome had eventually been a painful one. Maybe he had trouble saying them because he'd learned to associate them with misery and hurt.

Sighing, he put the last dish away and grabbed a beer from the fridge. He settled in front of the TV and searched for a good, mindless action movie to distract him.

* * *

Jim stuck his head under the shower the next morning, bracing his hands against the tile wall and letting the hot water clear the mustiness from his brain. He hadn't slept well; he never did when Blair was gone. Besides the worry born from his experience of Sandburg as a trouble magnet, he was just never able to relax as completely as he could when Blair was around. Despite the pounding water, he heard the faint sounds Blair made as he came home, dropped his stuff, and ran upstairs. A few minutes later Jim heard the bathroom door open; Blair pulled the curtain aside and joined him in the shower. This had become a regular morning ritual for them ever since Blair had started riding along with Vice. Jim smiled as Blair wrapped his arms around his waist and leaned up against his back, but the smile faded almost immediately as he felt the tension in his lover's sturdy frame. 

_Uh, oh_, thought Jim. _Bad night_.

He turned and put his arms around Blair, pulling him close, rubbing his back. Slowly he felt the tension drain out of him. Blair sighed.

"One of the benefits of living with a Sentinel, I guess. I don't have to tell you when I'm upset."

"You want to talk about it?" Jim asked.

"We raided a drug house tonight." Blair said quietly. "Arrested everyone and took them off to holding." He drew a shaky breath and his voice thickened with sadness. "Jesus, Jim, some of them were just kids – 16, 17 years old. Been living there for months. The place was filthy…rotting food, garbage everywhere."

"I know, Chief," Jim said softly. There was nothing else to say. He remembered only too well what Vice was like.

"Why do people do that to themselves?" Said almost forlornly.

Jim sighed. Blair wanted a simple answer, and he didn't have one. "I guess they're just looking for whatever kind of comfort they can find. For some people, that comes from a bottle, or from a pill, or from a needle." This was the only thing that worried him about Blair doing police work – his tendency to empathize with people so intensely. If he wasn't careful, it was going to burn him out.

"Oh, and putting them all in holding, then court and jail – that'll be very helpful, very comforting," Blair responded, with a bitter edge to his voice that Jim had never heard before.

"Chief, you gotta learn to detach a little." He didn't mean to lecture, but he didn't like the way this conversation was going and he didn't know how else to change it.

"Yeah, I know – 'Check my humanity at the door', right?"

"Your words, not mine," Jim reminded him. "I said, 'Whatever it takes to keep you present'. You can't allow yourself to get distracted by your feelings." Blair looked up at him suddenly, the blue eyes shadowed by concern.

"I didn't mean you, you know. I didn't mean that you didn't care. I mean, I hardly knew you then. I know, now, that that's not true. Not at all."

Jim smiled down at him. "I know," he said gently.

"I just don't think locking those kids up is going to help them," Blair couldn't help but return to the original subject.

"Chief, helping is nice when we can do it, but our job is to protect the public."

"From the menace of 16-year old drug addicts?" Blair said, the bitter tone returning to his voice. He looked up at Jim. "Maybe I'm…." he started, but then stopped. Jim saw a resolute look pass over his face, saw his jaw clench in a gesture so familiar Jim wondered if Blair had been consciously watching him and practicing it. "….Maybe I'm just going to go to bed," he finished quietly.

Unwilling to let him go in this mood, Jim cupped his face in one hand, gently stroking his thumb across Blair's mouth. "Want some company?" he asked softly. He was rewarded by the sight of Blair's pupils dilating until his eyes looked almost black, and the faint underscent of his arousal.

"You'll be late for work," Blair protested, but the hopeful look in his eyes had not escaped Jim's notice. Nor had other things, lower, equally hopeful.

"I'll skip breakfast," Jim said, reaching back and shutting off the shower. "It'll be fine, someone will bring donuts."

"But you're going to a stakeout…"

"Shhh." Jim laid a finger across his lips to silence him, then bent his head to kiss him.

Afterwards, Jim dressed quickly and quietly in the morning light. Blair lay sprawled on his back across the bed, half covered by the sheet, looking disheveled and sated, and deeply asleep. Jim sat on the bed to tie his shoes, then reached over and touched Blair's shoulder gently. "Hey, Chief," he said.

"Hmmmm?" Blair said, sleepily.

"You gonna stay up here?"

Blair reached over, grabbed Jim's pillow, and wrapped his arms and legs around it. "…don' wanna leave…" he mumbled.

"Okay, but it might get pretty bright in here. No curtains and all." Blair mumbled something unintelligible. Jim smiled and pulled the sheet and comforter up around his shoulders. "Love you," he whispered, but Blair was already fast asleep. With a gentle caress to the curly head, he went downstairs. _See, I can too say it_, he sniped at himself as he descended the staircase.

_Buddy, I think it only counts if the person you're saying it to is awake to hear it_, his obstinate brain replied.

* * *

Blair saw the light change to yellow, gunned the Volvo, and made it across the intersection just as the light changed to red. He was in a hurry to get home. He had hoped to leave earlier so he would get a chance to see Jim before Jim left for work, but as this was his last ride-along with Vice, he'd had a ton of paperwork to do. 

He turned right on Prospect; as he stopped for the light he saw Jim coming out of the doorway and heading towards his truck. He was about to lean on his hornto get Jim's attention, when he saw a man in a dark suit come out of the entrance to the building next to the loft and intercept Jim. The man touched Jim's arm and said something to him. Jim stopped, but didn't look at the man. Then he headed towards his truck again and got in. The man followed him and got into the truck on the passenger side, and then the truck took off down Prospect.

_What the hell?_ thought Blair. _Who is that guy, and why did he get in Jim's truck?_ _And where are they going?_ Someone behind him honked, and he realized that the light had changed. Acting on impulse, he drove past the loft and followed Jim's truck.

He tried to remember what he had learned so far at the academy about cold tails. Keep about eight seconds back, keep at least two cars between him and the target, change lanes occasionally. Fortunately, Jim's truck was familiar enough to him that he could hang three or four cars back and reduce the chance of being detected without losing him. Although Jim would certainly recognize the Volvo when he saw it, regardless of how far back Blair was following.

Maybe this was some deep undercover work that Jim was doing? Although even when he was undercover, Simon gave Blair a heads-up about it, like at the prison, in case something went wrong. Something about this didn't seem right. There was something that bothered him about the interaction he'd witnessed outside the loft, he realized. Or, lack of interaction really….maybe that was it. Jim hadn't shown any kind of reaction to the guy. It was as if he hadn't been there at all.

Paradoxically, it got harder to tail Jim once they were outside of Cascade proper. In the city, with lots of traffic, it was easier for him to keep up with the truck but remain inconspicuous. Now, on a mostly deserted road leading up into the mountains, he had to really hang back to avoid being detected. A couple of times he thought he'd lost the truck entirely, but then he came around a curve and saw it in the distance. The last time that happened, he saw the truck turning onto an old unpaved road that he knew - from his days as a student activist - led to an unused logging camp. He slowed until the truck had gone up the road, out of sight, then pulled onto the shoulder next to the road and parked the car. He waited, forcing himself to count to 50 once, and then again, before getting out of the car. He grabbed his training badge and put it in his back pocket, just in case, and pulled a small flashlight out of his glove compartment and slipped it into a pocket in his leather jacket.

_Jim is gonna kill you if he's doing something undercover and you screw this up, Sandburg_, he told himself. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong. _I'm just gonna go take a look, see what's going on…if Jim's okay I'll get outta here and let him do whatever it is he's doing._

He walked towards the camp, paralleling the road, but staying in the woods. After about 200 yards, the road opened up into a clearing containing several old cabins. Most were in relatively advanced states of disrepair, but there were two that showed evidence of recent reconstruction. Jim's truck was parked in front of one of these, a long rectangular building that was probably the old bunkhouse, close to the edge of the clearing. The other was a smaller building, closer to the center of the clearing; two dark sedans were parked there.

He noticed that, if he stayed in the woods at the edge of the clearing, he could work his way around and have a pretty good view of the bunkhouse. And since Jim's truck was there, that was the most likely place for him to be. He saw that there were windows spaced along both long walls; maybe once he was across from the bunkhouse, he'd be able to see something. He headed through the woods, trying to walk as silently as possible. Once he got to a point directly across from the side of the bunkhouse, he crouched down and waited. No alarms, no outcry, no indication that anyone knew that he was here at all. Not for the first time he desperately wished for Jim's senses. He tried to look through the windows of the bunkhouse, but the glass was dirty with age and he couldn't see anything.

_Note to self, Sandburg_, he thought, _get some binoculars and leave them in your car. They would be pretty handy about now_. He waited five whole minutes, timing himself with his watch, before he decided that he had not been seen and it would be safe to approach the bunkhouse. He crept out of the woods and made his way over to the middle set of windows. Staying crouched, he maneuvered under the window, then slowly stood up and looked inside. What he saw made him gasp.

Jim was sitting in a chair at the far end of the bunkhouse. His arms were strapped to the arms of the chair, but his head was bent over his chest and he didn't look as though he was conscious. There was a table nearby strewn with medical equipment – hypodermics, IV bags, tape, scissors, scalpels – and some other objects that Blair didn't recognize. The man in the dark suit was bent over one of Jim's arms, inserting a hypodermic needle. He attached an IV to the needle and made an adjustment to the flow valve. He stood up, checked a few more connections on the IV, then turned and headed for the front door of the bunkhouse.

Blair dove for the ground, pressed up against the bunkhouse wall, heart pounding. Shit, he knew something hadn't been right! What the hell was going on? Possible scenarios ran through his head. Was it an undercover drug operation gone bad? Someone kidnapping Jim out of revenge? Was Jim really out or just pretending? What the hell was in the IV?

He heard footsteps crunching on gravel as someone – he assumed the man in the dark suit – left the bunkhouse. He rose to a crouch, crept quietly along the wall of the bunkhouse, and peered around the corner. Sure enough, the man was walking away towards the smaller building in the center of the clearing. He moved quietly back along the wall and looked in the window again. Jim hadn't moved. Pitching his voice so only Sentinel hearing could catch it, he whispered, "Jim, man, are you okay?"

No response.

"If you're okay, give me a sign…do something, like nod your head or tap your foot or something."

No response.

Feeling a little panicked, he examined the window, wondering if he could open it from this side and get inside. He needed something thin and flat to get under the casement. Something like his Swiss army knife…which he just now realized he had left in his backpack, back in his car. _Sandburg, you're an idiot_, he thought. _By all means, take your badge, take a flashlight even though it's the middle of the morning, but don't take what's probably the most useful tool you own_. He was considering whether he could break the glass in the window quietly when he heard the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered. A second later, he felt something hard pressed against the back of his head.

"I think you'd better come with me." A man's voice, cold.

_Shit_.

* * *

They were headed for the smaller building at the center of the clearing. The guy who had found him was also dressed in a dark suit – although Blair hadn't gotten a good enough look at this guy to tell whether it was the same guy who had ridden with Jim in the truck. He had frisked Blair pretty professionally, then cuffed his hands behind his back, and was now pushing Blair ahead of him through the clearing. When they got to the door of the small, square building the guy opened it and shoved Blair in. He lost his balance and fell; unable to catch himself, he took most of the impact on the left side of his face. 

"Clumsy, clumsy," the guy who had pushed him tsked, and he hauled Blair up by an arm into a straight-backed chair. He uncuffed Blair, then pulled his arms through the rungs of the chair back and recuffed him. Blair glared at him, memorizing his face. The guy was blond, young-looking, with bland features.

"Let me tell you something," Blair began, "you are in a heap of trouble here, man. I'm Detective Sandburg, with Narcotics, and you're interfering in our investigation of a smuggling ring that's been operating around here…"

He was interrupted by a rich, amused voice coming from behind him. "Mr. Sandburg, your…obfuscations…aren't necessary. We know exactly who – and what – you are." The speaker came around into Blair's field of vision – an older man, with gray at his temples, wearing a gray suit.

"How come you're not following the Minion Dress Code?" Blair said snidely, and then a light dawned. "Ah, that's because you're not a minion, huh? You're the guy in charge."

The man in the gray suit inclined his head. "I am Mr. Thomas." He smiled briefly and turned to his companion. "Mr. Cannon, why don't you leave us and check on the progress of our…ah…project." Cannon shot him an uncertain look, and Thomas waved him towards the door. "Go ahead. Don't worry. I assure you I'm perfectly safe."

Cannon left. Blair turned back to Thomas. "So, by 'project' I assume you mean whatever you're doing to my partner?"

Thomas smiled. "I assure you that he is not – nor will he be – physically damaged in any way."

"Oh, yeah, I'm really inclined to believe you, man," Blair said sarcastically. "I just tend to automatically trust people who handcuff me and carry out secret activities in abandoned logging camps. I bet Thomas isn't even your real name." The look in Thomas' eyes, which had been affable to this point, got darker. "So what, if I may ask again, are you doing, exactly, with my partner?"

"Frankly, Mr. Sandburg, I'm a little disappointed that you haven't figured it out already. I had been informed that you were bright."

Blair seethed a little at this, but kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to give Thomas the time of day if he could help it.

Thomas sighed, and shook his head. "Such paranoia is uncalled for, Mr. Sandburg," he said. "We know Mr. Ellison is a Sentinel. And we know you're his Guide. But I'm afraid that doesn't really answer your question, does it?"

Blair was reluctant to implicitly acknowledge Thomas' statement, but he needed to know what was going on. "No, so why don't you enlighten me?" he said.

Thomas walked around to the desk and sat down. "James Ellison possesses a number of special skills and attributes, not the least of which is being a Sentinel…"

Blair interrupted him. "Yeah, thanks, I've read the Cliff Notes," he snapped, "could we just cut to the chase? What are you doing to him?"

Thomas' eyes darkened again. "You know, if I was in your position, Mr. Sandburg, I'd exercise a little more patience. You may be – how did you say it? – 'one of ten people in the country who knows this much about Sentinels', but that doesn't mean that you still haven't got things to learn."

Blair froze, and the blood drained from his face. Those were the exact words he'd used to Jim. During a private conversation. In the loft. "You've…you've bugged the loft?" he said, astonished. "Man, that has got to be some kind of civil rights violation…you can't just go around bugging people's homes…I am going to report you to the FCC and the Department of Justice…" he trailed off, because Thomas was laughing.

"Mr. Sandburg, exactly who do you think we are? The Mafia? Or some poorly funded fly-by-night terrorist organization? No, we ARE the government." He chuckled again. "My projects are funded by the NSA, although you'd be hard-pressed to find my line item in any public budget document."

Blair was still wrestling with the idea of the loft being bugged. He was trying to remember some of the more recent conversations he and Jim had had…and then it occurred to him that there had been a lot of…private activities…going on recently as well. His cheeks flushed suddenly, although with anger rather than embarrassment.

Thomas seemed to notice this, because he said, "Despite this administration's rather contradictory public stance, Mr. Sandburg, we really don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. We bugged the loft to monitor Mr. Ellison, as well as whether or not you were catching on to our little project."

"Which you were about to explain to me," said Blair, controlling the anger and disgust in his voice. If he was going to help Jim, he needed all the information he could get.

"As I was saying," Thomas said, shooting Blair a dark look, "James Ellison possesses a number of special skills and attributes." This time Blair didn't interrupt. Thomas continued. "Not just his Sentinel senses, but his training as a Ranger, his experiences in covert operations; all these combine to make him a very dangerous individual. Under the right circumstances, he could become a very potent weapon. Able to go into places where a larger force would be noticed, able to carry out…objectives…without being detected, able to find people who do not wish to be found. To that aim, we are encouraging him to be of service to his country yet again."

"You mean be an assassin for you," Blair said flatly. "Jim would never agree to that, not in a million years."

"As fortune would have it, Mr. Sandburg, he doesn't have to." Blair must have looked confused, because Thomas smiled slightly and continued. "Oh, yes, I've been remiss, I haven't thanked you for _your_ help on this project. The, ah…kidnapping…we arranged served as an excellent catalyst to provoke Mr. Ellison into an episode of hyper-rage, a very rare event in Sentinels, as I'm sure you've learned."

Blair grit his teeth and closed his eyes against a rush of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. In its wake came rage. Jim had been right. It had all been done on purpose.

Thomas continued. "Now that Mr. Ellison has experienced that particular state, we can – using drugs and hypnosis – manipulate events in his mind to induce it again. Using those same techniques, we can point him towards any target we wish and convince him to eliminate it by convincing him it is a threat to you. I believe it is this portion of the project that you witnessed today."

In a voice so low and furious that he hardly recognized it as his, Blair snarled, "You sadistic bastard. You have no right to do this to us…to anyone…"

Thomas rose suddenly and slammed his hands down on the desk. "Mr. Sandburg, we have every right!" he shouted. "In case you haven't noticed, we are at war. At war with an enemy who doesn't care about the deaths of innocent people, nor hesitate to sacrifice its own sons and daughters to the cause. I am empowered to do anything, and I mean anything, to insure the safety of this country and its citizens. And I will."

"The ends justify the means, is that it?" Blair retorted.

"I prefer to think of it as the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few." Thomas replied. He looked at Blair for a few minutes, composing himself, and seemed to be considering something. "You know, Mr. Sandburg, you really are an exceptional Guide. We've been following Mr. Ellison's career for some time and you've done an amazing job teaching him to control and use his senses effectively. We haven't had any successes like Mr. Ellison in our Sentinel program, but we could always use someone with your talent, even though our protégés aren't even close to your current standard."

"Go fuck yourself." Blair spat.

The two men glared at each other across the desk. Several tense minutes went by, then Blair said, "Okay, so is this the part where you take me out back and shoot me?"

Something like discomfort…or fear?...passed over Thomas' face. "Why would we want to do that, Mr. Sandburg?"

"Because you've just broken Evil Overlord rule #7. You've told me your plans."

Thomas raised an eyebrow at him. "It's not as if you could do anything to stop us. Even if you do tell Mr. Ellison what you've found out – and _if_ he believes you – there isn't anything either of you can do about it."

_Oh, he's gonna believe me_, Blair thought grimly. _And I am gonna find a way to stop you_.

Thomas pressed the button of an intercom device on his desk. The door opened and the man Blair had seen intercept Jim at the loft came in. Thomas motioned to Blair. "Take Mr. Sandburg back to his car, if you would, Mr. Booth. Oh, and…" he motioned the man closer and whispered something in his ear that Blair could not catch. Booth grasped Blair's arm and detached him from the chair roughly.

"Don't I get to say goodbye to my partner?" asked Blair, still hoping that some well-timed whispers could penetrate Jim's drug-induced trance.

"No, Mr. Sandburg, I'm smarter than that," said Thomas. "Goodbye."

Booth shoved Blair out the door and towards the unpaved road leading from the clearing. They followed the road back to the highway. When they got there Blair tensed, figuring Booth was going to rough him up, but Booth just went over to the Volvo, opened it, and popped the hood. He removed the Volvo's distributor cap, then came over to Blair, turned him around roughly and unlocked the handcuffs. He headed back up the road, laughing at Blair. "You'd better get going, it's a long walk back to Cascade! If you're lucky, maybe you'll get home before your partner…"

Blair grimly watched him go, rubbing his wrists. When Booth was out of sight, he opened his car, loaded everything of value in his backpack, and started walking along the side of the highway towards Cascade, thumb out. Hopefully, someone would come along and give him a ride back to town. He had a lot of work to do before Jim got home….

* * *

Booth tossed the distributor cap onto Thomas' desk. "I did as you asked. But I still don't understand why we don't just get rid of him." 

Thomas sighed in irritation. "As I've explained to you, it's not that simple. We need him right now. Once we know that our plan works, well, then, we'll see. But for the moment, we need him alive and unharmed."

"But he'll warn Ellison. And now he knows about the bugs in the loft."

"I strongly doubt Mr. Ellison will believe him. We have been taking some steps against that possibility. And, although losing our capacity to monitor the conversation in the loft is a small setback, rest assured, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that will ensure that we don't lose track of Mr. Sandburg and Mr. Ellison."

* * *

Jim pulled his truck into the loft's parking space, idly noting the absence of Blair's car. Christ, but he was tired. Visiting two crime scenes and then sitting through a three-hour deposition could do that to a person. He felt achy and his head was pounding. He wanted nothing more than shower, food, and sleep, in that order. With Blair, if possible, although he didn't think he'd be up to much tonight. 

Maybe he was coming down with something. Well, if that was so, he'd better hide it from his partner. No doubt Blair would make him take some weird-smelling herbal concoction that would give him hives, or result in him hearing Native American drum rhythms all day, or something like that. Smiling slightly, he got out of the truck and headed for the loft.

Music was playing, some kind of tribal theme with drums and a high, wavering wind instrument. There was also a strange scent, familiar and yet not familiar…Jim shook his head irritably, trying to place it. The volume on the stereo was a little high, and as he tossed his keys into the basket by the door he called out, "Hey, Chief, think we could turn the music down a little…"

Blair came out of the kitchen at a sprint, holding a bag of frozen peas to the left side of his face. He skidded to a stop in front of Jim and clapped his hand over Jim's mouth. His eyes were wide, insistent, demanding. Before Jim could react, he turned and grabbed a pad of paper from the table and thrust it at Jim, then headed off for the stereo. Jim looked down at what was written on the pad.

Don't say anything. The loft is bugged.

Jim looked up in consternation. Blair had turned the music down and was headed back towards him. He saw Jim looking at him and made a motion with his right hand as if to suggest flipping the sheet of paper over on the pad. Jim did so, and saw -

Trust me.

Written in block letters and underlined several times.

Suddenly Jim recognized the familiar-but-not-familiar scent he'd picked up. He'd smelled it a million times when interrogating people. He'd smelled it on Blair, before, too, but not usually in the loft. It was the sour tang he associated with fear.

He also noticed a couple of duffle bags and their fishing gear piled by the door.

Blair had come back over to stand in front of Jim. "So, Simon gave you some time off because you closed the Russell case. I thought we'd go camping, man. Cascade National Forest sound good?" he said, slightly louder than normal.

Jim, although bewildered, made an effort to play along. "Sure, Sandburg, a few days in the wilderness sounds great. Let me get my stuff together." Suddenly he noticed the bag of peas, grabbed Blair's shoulder, and peeled the bag away from his face. He sucked in his breath sharply when he saw the livid purple and yellow bruise that spread over Blair's cheekbone. He shot a questioning look at Blair, but Blair shook his head and tucked the peas under his arm. He grabbed the pad, flipped to a clean sheet, and wrote -

Later.

Jim took the pad, flipped back to the part about the loft being bugged, tapped it and then pointed to his ears and shrugged. Blair got the message –

If the loft is bugged, why can't I hear the electronics?

Blair took the pad back, flipped to a clean sheet, wrote, and turned it back to Jim –

Like Brackett.

Jim frowned. Brackett was a rogue CIA agent who had planted smoke bombs in Blair's classroom at Rainier; he had masked their sound from Jim by pairing them with tiny white noise generators.

Blair put the bag of peas back on his face and went back to the kitchen. He returned with a urine sample cup, which he handed to Jim and pointed to the bathroom. Jim looked at the cup in sheer astonishment, then at Blair, and then raised one eyebrow pointedly.

Blair flipped back to the 'Trust me' and pointed to it insistently. His eyes were still wide, almost pleading now.

Jim hesitated, but real concern was starting to gnaw at his belly. Sure, there was always a little weirdness where Blair was concerned, but this seemed to be beyond even him. He seemed…almost panicked. And it was unlikely that this was an elaborate joke or set-up. There was no way Blair would have been able to fake that scent. Sighing, he took the cup and went into the bathroom, still halfway expecting Joel or H to be behind the door, jumping out to surprise him and tell him he was on Candid Camera.

But they didn't.

He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later and handed the cup to Blair. Blair grabbed the pad, wrote several lines, handed it to Jim, grabbed his coat and some keys, and was out the door. Jim looked at the pad. Blair had written –

Borrowing the truck. Back in 30 min. Don't leave the loft. Don't open the door.

Jim exhaled in annoyance, then stalked over to the stereo and snapped it off. The silence made him feel better. He considered bolting the door and not letting Blair back in until he explained himself, but again felt that sense of concern. Something was very wrong – or at least Blair was convinced that it was. He extended his hearing carefully but could not detect any unfamiliar noises in the loft. He looked down at the pad and threw it on the table. At least he could take a shower and eat something.

As it turned out, he got to shower, but Blair returned just as he finished getting dressed. He burst back into the loft, looking panicked; relief crossed his features as soon as he saw Jim over the bedroom railing. With the peas relegated to his coat pocket, he started hauling bags and other gear out to the truck.

Jim came downstairs and intercepted him on his way out the door with one of the duffles. He grabbed Blair by the shoulders, gave him a quick kiss, then put his mouth next to Blair's ear and whispered, "Calm down. Breathe." He pulled away and caught Blair's rueful smile. He took the duffle from Blair and was surprised by how heavy it was. Before he could stop himself, he blurted, "Jesus, Sandburg, what do you..."

His exclamation was stopped by Blair's hand over his mouth. Blair gave him that rueful smile again, then pulled Jim's head down until his ear was next to Blair's mouth. "Books," he breathed, so softly Jim barely caught it. He released Jim, but not before returning the kiss; then he grinned and pushed Jim towards the door.

Once they had loaded the truck, Jim came back upstairs. Blair met him at the door and mimed holding a phone to his head. Jim frowned, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Blair took it and put it on the shelf next to the door, grabbed the pad off the table, then motioned Jim out.

Once in the truck, Blair flipped a couple of pages on the pad and turned to Jim. "Okay. We're not going to Cascade National Forest. We're going to Simon's cousin's cabin. I've got directions right here." He handed the pad to Jim.

"So it's okay for us to talk now?" Jim said, a little more sharply than he intended.

"Yeah," Blair sighed wearily, "I don't think they bugged the truck."

Jim glanced at the directions, started the truck, and headed down Prospect. He glanced over at Blair. The bag of peas was back on his face. "So why can't I bring my cell phone?" he asked.

"GPS tracking system in it," Blair replied shortly. "Mine as well. I traded with one of the cadets in my class at the academy…told him I was going up to the mountains and needed a phone with better coverage."

This didn't entirely make sense to Jim, but he was concentrating on following the directions; negotiating the city streets and getting on the highway heading south out of Cascade. Once there, he turned to Blair, intending to demand a better explanation, but found that Blair was asleep sitting up, the bag of peas having fallen to his lap.

Jim reached over and tugged gently on Blair's hair. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty, you'll get a crick in your neck if you sleep like that. And I think those peas are done," as he gingerly picked the mushy warm bag out of Blair's lap.

Blair woke up, blinking and looking around. "Hmmm?"

"What time did you wake up today?"

"Never went to sleep," Blair mumbled.

"Christ, Chief, you've been up for almost 24 hours straight," Jim exclaimed. He reached behind the truck's bucket seat and found the blanket that he kept there for emergencies. Pulling it forward, he coaxed Blair to lie down on the seat and covered him with the blanket.

"…such a long walk back to Cascade," Blair muttered. "And I didn't get a ride until I was already halfway…"

Jim looked at him in concern. He wanted to press Blair for an explanation, but decided that he wasn't going to get much that made sense as long as he was this tired. He put a hand on Blair's head and stroked his hair. "Just relax, Chief," he said softly. "This is gonna take us about three hours, so you should be able to get some sleep."

* * *

Cannon entered Thomas' office, hanging up his cell phone as he came in the door. "Sir, Marshall reports that Ellison and Sandburg have left the loft," he said. He noticed that Thomas wasn't alone; a small, slender, dark man dressed in a white laboratory coat stood in the far corner. 

"Thank you, Mr. Cannon," Thomas replied briskly. He lifted a small device from his desk that looked like a radio, except that it had a large round screen in the middle. He flipped a switch and voices emitted from the device.

"…_cousin's cabin. I've got directions right here_."

"_So it's okay for us to talk now_?"

"_Yeah, I don't think they bugged the truck_."

Thomas smiled. "You'd be wrong about that, Mr. Sandburg. And with a little something extra." He turned a knob on the device and the voices diminished. He then toggled another switch and the screen in the middle of the device lit up with what looked like a map schematic. A bright red dot was visible, moving across the map.

"Sir, should I assemble a team and retrieve Ellison?" Cannon asked.

Thomas sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers on his chin meditatively. "I think not, Mr. Cannon, not yet. Let's allow Mr. Sandburg to think he's pulled one over on us."

"But he will undoubtedly try to interfere with Ellison's conditioning," Cannon protested.

Thomas shared a mirthless smile with the man in the corner. "He may try, Mr. Cannon, but it is unlikely that he will be successful. In the first place, Dr. Monroe's conditioning is not going to be so easily broken, will it, Dr. Monroe?"

The dark man in the lab coat inclined his head gravely. "As you say, Mr. Thomas. Not so easily broken. And if he attempts to set his own hypnotic suggestions, it will no doubt be easy for us to identify and eliminate them."

"So you see, Mr. Cannon, nothing to worry about." Thomas steepled his fingers. "We have more than a week before the test run, and we know where Ellison is – we can always go and get him if we need to."

* * *

An hour and a half out of Cascade, Jim could no longer ignore his stomach. He exited and pulled the truck into the parking lot of a small diner. As the truck came to a stop, Blair sat bolt upright, gasping, "What's wrong? Are we being followed? We shouldn't stop." 

"Sorry, Chief, I've got to eat," replied Jim. He looked at Blair with narrowed eyes. "And when was the last time you ate?" he asked.

Blair blinked. "I…I don't remember…I think it was last night…"

"Then you need food, too. Come on." Jim started to unbuckle his seat belt, then looked at Blair and the ugly bruise spreading across his cheek. "On second thought, maybe we should do take-out. I think if I walk in there with you looking like that, someone's going to call the cops." But that had reminded Jim of something. "First, though, let me check that out."

Blair slid over next to him, and he gently held Blair's chin with one hand, putting the fingers of the other hand on Blair's cheekbone. "This might hurt a little bit," he warned. He closed his eyes and focused on sifting and refining the sensations he was getting from his fingers, rubbing them along Blair's face, searching for breaks or cracks in the bone beneath. He heard Blair grunt a few times, but he didn't wince. After a few minutes, Jim opened his eyes. "Feels okay," he said. "Nothing's cracked or broken. You're just going to have one hell of a bruise for a while."

"Tell me something I don't know," Blair said.

They ate sitting in the truck, in the parking lot. As soon as he had finished eating, Blair lay back down on the truck seat and fell asleep. Jim wondered if he had ever been completely awake. He disposed of the trash, taking the opportunity to get rid of the bag of peas, and then headed back out on the highway.

* * *

Blair awoke with a start. The room was bright, but unfamiliar. Sunlight streamed in through windows that looked out on an expanse of piney woods. He reached out, but the space next to him was empty. "Jim?" he called loudly, starting to panic. 

"Hang on, I'm coming," came the laconic reply, and Jim came through the door from the main part of the cabin, fully dressed, two mugs of coffee in his hands. He handed a mug to Blair, and settled on to the bed with his own mug, back against the headboard, long legs stretched out in front of him.

Blair sat up and crossed his legs. He wrapped his hands around the mug and inhaled deeply, took a long, greedy gulp, shaking his head to clear it of the last vestiges of sleep.

Jim was drinking his coffee and looking at him with a grin on his face. "Damn, but you can sleep, Sandburg. Do you know it's almost 11? I've been up for hours."

Blair smiled in return. "Grad student survival tactics, man. Got to be able to stay awake for hours and make up for it at the drop of a hat." His smile faded a little as he remembered what had happened to make him so tired. "I had a hell of a day yesterday. That is, I'm assuming it was yesterday." He looked up at Jim. "I didn't sleep an entire day away, did I?"

"No, only about 14 hours or so. You were pretty much out the moment we left Cascade. You probably don't even remember arriving here last night." Blair shook his head. Jim put his coffee cup down, crossed his arms, and fixed Blair with a serious look. "Okay, Chief, let's have it. What the hell is going on?"

Blair sighed. He kept his hands wrapped tightly around his coffee cup and focused on the liquid inside. He told Jim everything that had happened from the moment he had seen Jim leaving the loft the day before. "…and so I started walking back to Cascade. I was hoping to hitch a ride and save some time, but I couldn't get one until I was more than halfway back, so it didn't really save me all that much time. Then I had to get over to the academy and convince this guy I know to let me borrow his cellphone, 'cause I sure as hell couldn't use mine, 'cause dollars to donuts they've got a tap on it or could use it to trace us, or whatever, then I had to call Simon and arrange for us to get up here…"

Jim reached over and put his hand on his knee, interrupting his monologue. "Blair, breathe," he said.

Blair looked up. Jim had this gentle but concerned look that clearly said, Sandburg is going through some weird thing and I'm going to do my best to help him out. "Damn it, Jim," he groaned. Although he appreciated the concern, this was _so_ not what he needed Jim to do right now. "You don't believe me, do you?"

Jim's look was serious. "I know that you believe it, Chief. I can smell it on you." Blair exhaled in relief. Thank God for Sentinel senses, he thought. But Jim's next words made his heart sink. "But, Blair, I remember what I did yesterday. And I don't remember sitting in some bunkhouse in some abandoned logging camp being drugged and hypnotized." Again with the concerned look. "Maybe you just thought it was me…maybe they had someone pretending to be me, so that you would believe them."

Blair shook his head helplessly. "What do you remember about yesterday?"

"I remember that, in the morning, I went over to Diana Richardson's house and took a statement about her brother's homicide."

"What was she wearing?"

Jim thought about it. "I don't remember, Chief." He shrugged. "You know, after a while all those statements start merging together."

Blair fixed him with a glare. "No, they don't. You always remember exactly what people are wearing when you take their statements, what they smell like, what sounds they make, all that stuff. That's one of the reasons the DA loves to have you on the stand. What did you do after lunch?"

Jim appeared taken aback. "Taggart and I had to go give a deposition…"

"What did he have for lunch?"

"Uh…I don't really know…I can't remember…."

"Jim, man, you always know what Joel has for lunch," Blair pointed out. Taggart tended to favor chili dogs or spicy Mexican food, and Jim could always pinpoint where and what he had eaten just from the smell. Blair inwardly gave a grim smile of satisfaction. It was as he had hypothesized. Thomas and his goons had implanted memories to cover Jim's absence yesterday, but had failed to give them a level of detail consistent with Jim's senses.

"Well, maybe yesterday he had a turkey sandwich at the deli or something, and I just didn't notice. What's your point, Sandburg?" Jim grumbled.

"Then what did you have for lunch?"

Jim frowned. That was not usually a difficult question, Blair thought. Especially since he had been going out on ride-alongs; Jim usually delighted in regaling him with a detailed description of whatever monstrously unhealthy junk food he had eaten that day, now that Blair wasn't around to monitor his eating habits. "I…I don't remember…." He looked up and Blair saw a flash of fear in his eyes. It was quickly replaced by irritation. "This doesn't prove anything, except that I'm getting old and my memory's shot. Thanks for the update."

Blair knew that the sarcasm in Jim's voice wasn't personal, but was born of Jim's fear that Blair was right. That knowledge wasn't making this any easier, though. He still had one argument, one trump card left to play. Putting his coffee down on the bedside table, he rooted around in the pile of clothes on the floor for his jeans. He reached into the back pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. "Remember that urine sample I asked you for yesterday?"

"Yeah, Sandburg, although I can't remember what I had for lunch, weirdness like that is pretty hard to forget."

"Well, I went down to the station and asked the lab tech to run a stat analysis on it." He put a hand up at Jim's aggrieved look. "Oh, for God's sake, I didn't tell her it was yours. I just said that we needed it for a case that we thought was about to break. Those are the results." He unfolded the paper and handed it to Jim.

Jim glanced over the paper, and Blair saw his jaw tighten. "Why don't you just skip to the chase, Chief, and give me the short version?" He met Blair's gaze and Blair could see the fear clearly now, lurking in the background. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. This was not going to be pleasant.

"The results of the analysis were positive for flunitrazepam, a benzodiazepine." At Jim's blank look, Blair added, "Rohypnol. Stays in the system for no more than 72 hours. So what that paper is saying is that someone, at some point in the last 72 hours, got a drug into your system that causes anterograde amnesia – i.e., you can't remember what happens after you take it."

Jim went perfectly still, his eyes returning to the paper in his hand. As Blair watched, all the angles and planes of his face turned to granite, and his eyes became opaque and unreadable. With a sudden movement like a spring uncoiling, he was off the bed, shoving his feet into boots, and heading for the door. "Going for a walk," he said, his voice tight and cold.

Blair scrambled for his clothes. "Wait, I'll come with you."

"Alone, Sandburg." His tone was icy. The front door to the cabin slammed shut behind him.

It took Blair precious minutes to pull on his jeans and a shirt. By the time he got out the front door of the cabin, Jim was nowhere in sight. "I don't think this is a good idea!" he yelled into the forest. No response. Cursing, he went back into the cabin and slammed the door.

* * *

The sound of footsteps crunching on gravel startled Blair from his reading. Glancing at his watch, he realized that it was nearly 5 pm. The footsteps approached the cabin. Blair closed the book quietly and slipped into the kitchen, where he found a large butcher knife. Gripping the handle tightly, he held the knife out of sight along his hip and waited. 

The door to the cabin opened and Jim stood in the doorway. Blair exhaled in relief. "Man, that was _so_ not a good idea, huh?" he said sharply.

"I heard you the first time," Jim responded quietly.

"Yeah, well, not that you listened to me," Blair grumbled. He put the knife on the counter, and started towards Jim. "I'm your partner, man, you're supposed to let me help you. I don't think they know where we are, but who knows, and they could grab you, and I wouldn't be able…" he trailed off as he got closer and realized that Jim was cradling his right hand against his chest. "Holy shit, Jim, what happened to your hand?" He grabbed Jim's wrist and pulled his hand towards him. His knuckles were bloody, the skin around them bruised and broken.

"I hit a rock. A couple of times."

Blair stared at him, openmouthed. "You did what? Why?"

"I knew I'd have to do something to convince you that I know where I've been for the last six hours."

"Oh, man, Jim," Blair groaned. "You could have smelled the pine trees or listened to the stream or something."

Jim regarded his hand calmly. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Blair turned him and pushed him towards the couch. "Go. Sit. I'm going to find the first aid kit." Jim walked over to the couch and sat down while Blair dug in one of the duffles for the first aid kit they always carried. He detoured to the kitchen and came out with a bowl of water and some clean rags. Carrying the supplies, he made his way over the couch and knelt on the floor in front of Jim, sitting back on his heels.

"Here, give me your hand." Sopping the rag in the water, he gently tried to clean Jim's torn and bruised knuckles. "Nothing's broken, right?" Jim shook his head. When he'd gotten the worst of the dried blood off, he dried Jim's hand off and soaked a gauze pad with hydrogen peroxide. He looked up at Jim. Jim was watching his hand gravely. "Okay, you'd better seriously dial it down, man. This is gonna hurt like a motherfucker."

Jim shrugged diffidently. "It's okay, don't worry."

Blair took a deep breath and pressed the gauze pad to Jim's knuckles. He raised his eyebrows in surprise when Jim didn't move a muscle, didn't even change his breathing. "Man, your control's gotten really good." He pressed the pad to the wounds a few more times, then put a clean pad over Jim's knuckles and carefully wrapped it in gauze. "There."

Jim turned his hand, made a fist a few times, testing the flexibility of the bandage. "Good job. Thanks." He looked up and met Blair's eyes.

Blair realized that this was the first time that Jim had actually looked at him since returning to the cabin. He was expecting to see that shuttered, closed look he had seen earlier, but to his surprise Jim's eyes were so open he seemed almost naked. He looked directly at Blair with a clear, penetrating gaze. Blair had never seen that look before. He had the uncomfortable sensation that he was looking directly through Jim, all the way to the back of his head, and that Jim was…empty. It was as if Jim was made of glass and would shatter into a thousand pieces at the slightest touch. He rose off his heels and grasped Jim's shoulders firmly, holding Jim's eyes with his own. "Hey. Listen to me. I am going to fix this, you hear?" he said fiercely. "I won't let this happen, I won't let them do this to you. I've got a plan. But I need your help. You've got to promise me that you won't go off like that again without me. We're here because I need – we need – some time and some space to figure this out, figure out what to do."

Emotion crossed Jim's face, too quickly for Blair to identify. In its wake was a small, wry smile. "You've got a plan, huh?"

"Of course I've got a plan," Blair said, grinning. "When do I not have a plan? But right now, the plan involves food." Jim nodded, but Blair didn't move. Now that he had a hold of Jim, he was scared to let go of him. His heart tightened in his chest at the thought. He slipped his hand around the back of Jim's neck, pulled him close, and kissed him gently. He thought, for just a moment, that Jim hesitated, but then his hands came to rest on Blair's hips and he was returning the kiss, and Blair decided he must have imagined it.

After dinner, Blair made some tea and then steered Jim towards the fireplace. "Okay, phase one of Sandburg's Master Plan to Foil the Evil Minions of the Government is about to start." He'd thought he might get a laugh at that, or at least a smile, but Jim just looked at him, still with that clear, emotionless look. "You start a fire, I'm going to get some stuff." He headed back into the bedroom and dug through his duffle for a spiral notebook and a pencil. Jim's reaction was starting to worry him. Anger, sarcasm, hostility--like this morning--he'd been expecting that, but this detached, emotionless front was really starting to creep him out.

As he returned to the main room he detoured to pick up the text he had been reading. He settled in the armchair to the left of the couch. Jim was seated on the couch, arms crossed, long legs stretched out in front of him, staring into the fire. Blair looked at him, his concern growing. "You okay?" he asked.

Jim didn't look away from the fire. "No," he said softly.

"Stupid question, huh?"

"Yeah."

Blair's throat tightened and a sudden, wild wave of helplessness swamped him. Furiously clamping down on his emotions, he cleared his throat and said, "Okay. Phase one. We need to find out more about what kind of hypnotic suggestions they've given you. And the easiest way, I think, to do that is for me to hypnotize you and ask you questions."

"You're going to hypnotize me,"Jim said flatly.

"You know, I _did_ minor in Psych. And I spent the day reading about hypnosis, while you were out knocking poor defenseless rocks around."

"Okay."

Blair stared at Jim, nonplussed. He really had expected more of a fight, expected that he would have to bring all his persuasiveness to bear to convince Jim to let himself be hypnotized. He swallowed the cold knot in his throat and continued. "I think this will be pretty easy, man. It sounds just like zoning…well, actually, more like when I bring you out of a zone…I just talk to you and you focus on something and slip into a kind of trance, and then I can ask you questions and hopefully you'll be able to tell me something about the suggestions that Thomas and his goons have put in your head…."

Jim interrupted him. "Can we just get on with it?"

Blair stopped and took a deep breath. "All right. Get comfortable." He found the notes he had taken that afternoon while reading.

Jim rearranged himself on the couch.

"Okay, here we go." _God, I hope this works_.

Blair dropped his voice into a lower, softer register, the voice he tended to use when guiding Jim with his senses. "First of all, I want you to know that you will always be able to hear the sound of my voice. Now, I want you to focus on following your breath…in and out…in and out…"

* * *

It worked beautifully. Forty-five minutes later Blair was bringing Jim out of the trance, and he had three pages of notes. 

Jim blinked several times. "That didn't take very long."

"Jim, man, you've been under for, like, forty-five minutes," Blair said.

Jim looked at his watch, raising an eyebrow. "Was it helpful?" he asked.

"Yes," Blair said emphatically, and looked up at Jim with a small grin. "The good news is that these guys are either so incompetent or so arrogant – or both – that they haven't even bothered to try and hide what they're doing."

"Which is?" Jim leaned back against the couch, crossing his arms.

"They've conditioned you to respond to a specific scent – when you smell it, it'll trigger a state of hyper-rage. Then they've programmed you to go after a specific target once you're in that state."

"What's the scent?"

"That, I don't know." Blair said, frowning. "You don't have any information about that, unfortunately. It's got to be something unusual, though. Either something unbelievably rare, or a very complex, unusual mix of scents. They can't take the risk that you'd come across it during your ordinary day."

"Can't you just shut down my sense of smell?"

Blair gave him an exasperated look. "No, man, you _know_ you don't work that way. It's not like you've got an off switch. Even if you did, we'd have to leave it off forever, and that's no good."

"So that's the good news. What's the bad?"

Blair sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "The bad news is they apparently want you to kill the governor at a benefit dinner next week."

Jim leaned forward, elbows on knees, and put his head in his hands. "Major Crime was specifically requested to cover that function. I overhead Simon getting the call."

"Three guesses as to who's behind that," Blair muttered sarcastically, "and the first two don't count."

"But why target the governor? She's not exactly terrorist material. And I thought the whole point was to keep it covert?"

Blair shrugged. "Maybe it's just a convenient test run. And," he added, snapping his fingers, comprehension dawning in his eyes, "it isolates you, it gives you a plausible reason to vanish. If you disappear, everyone will assume you ran, and no one will bother to look for you."

There was a long silence. "So what now?" Jim asked.

Blair tapped the end of the pencil against his chin, staring off into the distance. "Okay, phase two. I need to think of a counter-suggestion…something to stop or act against the suggestion they've already implanted."

"Can't you just get rid of it?"

Blair shook his head. "The way it's set up, I can't just make it go away. We have to set up a competing suggestion, one that will kick in and override it."

"What's to stop them from finding your counter-suggestion and countering it with another one?"

Blair snorted. "I'm neither incompetent nor arrogant. I'm going to hide my tracks. They'll never know I was there."

Jim sighed, leaned back, and stared into the fire again. Silence filled the room.

"Oh, I forgot to ask," Blair said, looking up, "can you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Can you tell that it – the suggestion – is there?"

Jim looked at him blankly. "How would I do that?"

"Don't think about it, just feel. Can you feel it?"

Jim obediently closed his eyes. After a while, he said, "I do feel something…like a tiny pulse of sound; or like a grain of sand, just barely perceptible."

Blair grinned. "Yeah, that's it. Well, I'm glad to know that I got that right."

"And what good is it?" Jim asked.

Blair shot him another exasperated glance. "Well, for one thing, you'll be able to tell when the suggestion is gone. And it'll help me to know if I'm on the right track with the counter-suggestion."

They sat in silence for a time, Blair sitting in the chair with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring out the window, thinking; Jim sitting on the couch, staring into the fire. The sun went down and the shadows in the room lengthened as the fire died.

Blair got up and went into the kitchen. He heard Jim get up off the couch. "I'm going to bed," he said, "Want to come?"

"I don't know," Blair replied, "I'm not very sleepy." He washed the cup and set it on the dish rack. He smiled as he heard Jim come up behind him.

Jim's hands appeared on either side of Blair, his body pressing up against Blair's back. He leaned down until his lips were nearly touching Blair's ear and said, in a soft, deep whisper, "Who said anything about sleeping?"

Blair grinned, relieved at this evidence that Jim was back to his old self. It was probably because they had started confronting the problem head on, dealing with it instead of avoiding it. Jim always preferred action to conversation. He turned, leaning against the counter, and slid his arms around Jim's waist, smiling up at his lover. "Now, how can I refuse an offer like that?" he said, teasingly, as Jim's mouth came down on his.

* * *

Moonlight splintered through the pines, falling on the cabin floor like shards of broken glass. Jim sat on the couch, staring into the glowing embers of the fire he had built earlier. His gun sat on the coffee table in front of him. 

When he'd left the cabin this morning, Blair's warning echoing behind him, he hadn't had any specific direction in mind. He'd just headed into the woods. But then he'd found a faint horse trail, and before he knew it, he had started running. The physical exertion and the concentration needed to follow the track and place his feet safely had pushed everything else to the back of his mind. He didn't know how long he'd run, he lost track of time, but eventually he'd had to stop, the track petering out in a small meadow studded with granite boulders. And when he stopped, the realization of what Blair had told him hit him full force. Black fury had filled him, and he'd slammed his fist into one of the rocks, screaming out his frustration and anger.

Christ, it just wasn't fair! After all the misery in his life, all the trauma, all the heartbreak he had endured, he'd finally started to feel that somehow, the scales were tipping back the other way. That he had finally started to get some of that karmic payback Blair was always talking about. He'd developed some control over his senses; started to actually enjoy his job, get along with his co-workers; made peace with his father and his brother; fallen in love with Blair. He was finally starting to be – happy. And then this.

At least with the damned hyper-rage, he had memories. He remembered everything he'd done that night, even if it wasn't under his conscious control. But this – fake memories implanted to cover up suggestions, suggestions designed to turn him into some mindless assassin.

He'd slammed his fist into the rock again.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it, nowhere he could turn for help. Blair would try – Jim knew he would, he would try his best; he didn't doubt Blair's heart or his intelligence – but it would be futile, in the end. This was the government, the military. He had dealt with them before. They had infinite patience, infinite resources, and individuals who stood in their way just got chewed up and spit out.

There were a lot of things he could stand. He could stand pain - physical, mental, emotional; he could stand isolation; he could stand losing people close to him; he could stand losing the damned senses. He could even stand not having Blair in his life, as long as he knew Blair was happy and safe.

What he couldn't stand was being someone's dog. Being at someone's beck and call. Being – programmed. Being a mindless weapon for the government. Being out of control of his actions, his thoughts, his life. That wasn't going to happen.

He'd slammed his fist into the rock a few more times. The pain was good, gave him a focus, sharpened his thinking. Made it easier to see his options. Once he saw that, everything started to fall into place. He'd known what he had to do. He'd started to make plans.

Now back at the cabin, he picked up his gun from the coffee table. Its weight was comforting in his hand, the dark, cool metal, the familiar smells of Hobbes No. 9 and gunpowder. He racked the slide back and wondered idly if his senses would track the bullet's progress through scalp and skull and brain; if he would feel anything, hear anything, smell anything different than he had the other times he'd been shot. Of course, those times he hadn't been the one doing the shooting.

He closed his eyes, raised the gun to his head, and was immediately assailed by thoughts of Blair. No, not thoughts. Sense memories. Blair's skin, golden and warm under his fingers, whipcord muscles moving underneath, steel sheathed in silk. His unique scent, heady and musky, reminding Jim of cinnamon and ginger. The way that his full, generous mouth held the faint taste of the orange tea he'd had after dinner. The deep, honeyed burr of his voice, rough with desire, saying Jim's name. Those wide blue eyes, dark with passion but bright with love.

Another sense memory impinged on him. Running up the stairs at Hargrove Hall, catching the fountain in his peripheral vision, something horribly wrong. Dread like ice in his belly; trying to run towards the fountain, but his legs heavy like lead, moving in slow motion. That awful feeling of powerlessness, of denial; the body beneath his hands so still, the mouth under his so cold.

And how do you think it will be when it's him finding you?

The gun slipped out of suddenly weak fingers to fall with a dull clunk on the coffee table. He buried his face in his hands. He couldn't do it.

It had been a mistake to come back to the cabin, he realized. He had just wanted to make love to Blair one more time, to say goodbye, but now that he had, he couldn't go through with it. He'd lost his nerve, lost his chance. Now he was trapped, with no way out.

* * *

Blair sat cross-legged on the floor in the shadows of the bedroom and watched Jim pick up the gun. 

The day he had entered the academy, he had started working on controlling his heart rate and his breathing. If he and Jim were going to be partners, actual partners, then he didn't want to be a distraction to him. It would suck to have them be on some call and have Jim's attention drawn off of the bad guys by his adrenaline rush. He couldn't really do anything about his scent, but he could try and control the things Jim would hear. So he'd started doing more yoga, meditation, even gone for a few biofeedback sessions. He'd started to get pretty good at it.

It was coming in very handy now, although he'd never felt so terrified and helpless in his life. The only thing that made it close to possible, close to bearable, was that he knew that Jim's gun didn't have any bullets in it. He knew this because he had taken them out, tied them in an old scrap of cloth, and hidden them at the bottom of his duffle. He was a little surprised that Jim hadn't noticed that the clip was empty, but, then, he didn't seem to be his usual observant self since all this had started.

Actually, the bullets weren't in his duffle at this precise moment. Right now they were clutched in his hand; because he was consumed with the completely irrational fear that somehow they had managed to find their way back into the gun, and that he was going to sit here and watch Jim Ellison blow his brains out.

What he wanted to do was storm out there, grab the gun, and try to talk some sense into Jim. Or slap some sense into him. Whatever worked. A part of him was furious, and he wanted to scream at Jim, smack him, shake him until his teeth rattled. But another part of him was terrified that Jim would just get up and leave, just take off, like he had this morning, and then he wouldn't be able to find Jim, wouldn't be able to stop him…and there were cliffs out there to jump off of, and bodies of water to drown yourself in, not to mention a whole forest to be lost in…

So he clutched the bundle to his chest and felt the small, hard, blunt pieces of metal bite into his hand. He counted through them like the beads on a rosary, reassuring himself over and over that he had found them all, that he had them all, that it was all going to be okay – even though things felt as far from okay as they could possibly get.

More than anything, he wanted his normal Jim-under-stress back – angry, hostile, shouting, uncooperative, pushing him around. He could deal with that Jim. This other Jim, the one that had returned from being out in the woods – calm, composed, detached, unemotional – he didn't know how to deal with that Jim. That Jim frightened him, not personally, not like he thought Jim would hurt him, but like he couldn't reach him, couldn't touch him, couldn't talk him out of doing things.

Things like this. He watched as Jim raised the gun to his head.

_Jim, why don't you trust me?_ he thought miserably. _I told you I was going to fix this_. But even as he thought that, his anger melted away. He couldn't blame Jim for feeling hopeless. Hell, he was having to fight it back pretty hard himself. He had no idea what he was doing, no idea how to fix this, despite his assurances to the contrary. Well, he had ideas, plenty of ideas, but no real hard evidence that any of it was going to work.

Blair rubbed his hand over his face and felt dampness on his cheeks. He hadn't even known he was crying. He closed his eyes, summoned a deep breath, focused again on calming his heart, slowing his breathing. As soon as he felt he had some control, he opened his eyes, only to see Jim getting up from the couch. Quietly he got up from the floor, joints stiff from sitting so still for so long. He shoved the cloth with the bullets in it into his shoe, which he buried under a pile of clothes near the head of the bed. He slipped back into bed quietly and pulled the covers over himself.

He heard Jim walk into the bedroom. The bed creaked and shifted as Jim sat down, then stretched out, back to Blair, the space between them immense and unbridgeable.

Blair waited, wide awake, until Jim's breathing slowed and lengthened and he was reasonably sure that Jim was asleep. Trying to move as noiselessly as possible, he got out of bed, getting the bullets out of his shoe.

He crept silently out into the main part of the cabin and headed for the back door. It was an older model with an inside dead bolt. Blair threw the bolt and pocketed the key. He then went and dug a blanket out of the closet, pulled a couple of cushions off the couch, and settled down in front of the front door. _If Jim wants to leave, he's going to have to go through me_, he thought grimly.

He settled down on the cushions, but was unable to sleep, his mind spinning in circles. He thought he understood now why Thomas had looked so uncomfortable at the logging camp, why they hadn't tried to kill him. He was the lynchpin, the key to it all. He was the catalyst. The suggestions activated a state of hyper-rage by making Jim think he had been hurt, then pointed Jim towards a target by implanting suggestions to make Jim think the target was responsible for harming him. Logic had no place in this, from what he had read about it. Jim wasn't going to stop to analyze that none of it made sense, probably not stop even if Blair was right in front of him.

He frowned at that. There had to be something to that, though, right? How could the suggestion that he was hurt or in danger coexist with him being there? How could Jim, even in a state of hyper-rage, ignore what was right in front of him? But would his mere presence be able to penetrate the hypnotic suggestions? And that might work this time, but what if he wasn't there? What if, when this attempt failed, they planted new suggestions, for a time or place when he couldn't be there to snap Jim out of it? Maybe he could put in some kind of counter-suggestion that would force Jim to realize that he was unharmed, maybe force Jim to see him, even if he wasn't there. He'd read that some hypnotic suggestions could be so strong that they could actually induce hallucinations.

He blinked. The beginnings of an idea started to form in his mind…

* * *

"I want to try something different today. I've got a hypothesis I want to test out." 

Jim didn't even look up. "Fine," he replied quietly. Blair sighed inwardly and scrubbed his hand over his face wearily. Normally the mention of a test would have Jim glaring at him and making various threats of bodily harm. But then, nothing had been normal these past few days.

After that horrible night, Jim had shut down completely. Thankfully, he hadn't tried to leave the cabin again, but he didn't try to do anything else, either. He hardly looked at Blair, hardly spoke to him, didn't touch him at all. When he said anything, it was short and only in response to Blair's statements or questions. He ate whenever Blair told him to, whatever Blair put in front of him; went to bed when Blair told him to. It was driving Blair crazy.

Fortunately he had found a small cache of tools and used it to keep Jim busy with various fix-up projects around the cabin. Although he had no doubt that if he'd told Jim to go stand in the corner for four hours, he'd have done it, without saying a word. The projects did seem to help, though. Jim went at them silently but methodically, and his mood had seemed to improve slightly once Blair had hit on that particular strategy. He hoped things would continue to improve once they returned to Cascade and got back into the normal routine of their lives.

Intellectually, he knew that Jim was depressed, knew that he was having difficulty dealing with his inability to do anything about Thomas' plans. It was just rubbing his nerves raw. His heart ached for his partner and he was desperate to find some way out of this mess. But so far, none of his ideas for countering the suggestion in Jim's brain had worked. It didn't help that he wasn't sleeping well; despite Jim's lassitude, Blair was still spending his nights in front of the cabin door for fear that Jim would leave. The discomfort of his makeshift bed, plus his lack of success so far with the counter-suggestions, usually drove him awake after a few hours of sleep to pore over the books he had brought, seeking some kind of inspiration.

He was hoping a change of focus would help him, hence today's test. Blair sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table and motioned Jim to sit on the sofa. He had placed several pieces of equipment on the table: a radio, a flashlight, andthe borrowed cell phone. He also had a dandelion potted in a coffee cup, a candle, and a piece of wood. "Okay," he began, "I think I've figured out a way to locate the bugs once we get back to the loft."

Jim looked at him uncomprehendingly, and Blair felt his annoyance rise. "Well, I don't know about you," he snapped, "but _I'd_ prefer not to have someone listening to me every time I'm in the john." Jim shrugged and turned his attention back to the items on the table. Blair sighed, tried to draw the fraying ends of his temper together, and reminded himself for what seemed like the millionth time that Jim wasn't deliberately trying to piss him off.

_Just focus on the task at hand_, he admonished himself. "Okay, just bear with me, here," he started, anticipating Jim's automatic protest. "All living things give off electromagnetic energy. Plus, things that use electricity emit energy as well. Now, lots of people think that the electromagnetic energy that we give off is what's responsible for people's report of seeing and feeling auras." He looked at Jim, but Jim's expression hadn't changed. He was just gazing gravely at the objects on the table. "So, it stands to reason that, if things are giving off some kind of energy field, that you should be able to detect them. However, since you're giving off energy as well, I think that the way you'll be able to detect them is by how their energy field affects yours. It'll be kinda like using your sense of touch, but in a slightly different way. I don't think it'll be too hard, because we know that you're already sensitive to electromagnetic energy. But first, I want you to put these in." He handed Jim the hearing-aid-sized white noise generators he'd found for him. "I don't want your sense of hearing to accidentally influence you in any way, since you won't be able to rely on it to find the bugs."

He then had Jim go through a series of exercises designed to increase his awareness of his own electromagnetic field. Jim complied without comment or emotion. "Okay," Blair said, when they were done, "now, I want you to close your eyes and put your hands out, palm down,above the table. I want you to tell me if you feel anything different." Jim did as he was told, and Blair took the radio from the table. He turned it on, making sure that the volume was completely turned down, and slid it carefully under Jim's hands, making sure that there wasn't any actual physical contact between the two. Jim frowned and moved his hands around slowly, raising them and lowering them, moving them from side to side. Finally, he spoke.

"I feel something…different. Like a…a buzz, kind of. A…disruption. I lose it if I move my hands too far away from the table, or too far to either side. It's right in here," he said, using his hands to trace a rectangle that described the radio with eerie accuracy.

Blair grinned for the first time in days, but tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. The test wasn't quite over. "Okay, good. How about now?" he asked, having removed the radio and replaced it with the activated cell phone. Jim frowned again and moved his hands around carefully. It took slightly longer, but again he was able to sense the disruption caused by the electronic device and localize it with surprising accuracy. The same occurred with the flashlight, even when it was turned off, which Blair attributed to the minimal electric current flowing through the batteries. And, as he had predicted, Jim was unable to detect both the candle and the piece of wood, neither of which was giving off substantial amounts of energy. The dandelion proved to be the most interesting; Jim reported a sensation that was less like a disruption and more like being touched or stroked. Blair hypothesized that this was because the dandelion was actually living, unlike the other electronic objects they had used. He made a mental note to follow up on it later.

* * *

Blair opened the door of the loft and walked in, Jim behind him. "Home bugged home," he muttered under his breath. He dropped their bags by the staircase and headed for the kitchen, where he filled a bowl with water. He walked back over to Jim, who was standing in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands together slowly. "I say we start with the obvious stuff, like furniture, lamps, stereo, that sort of thing." Jim nodded. 

It took them nearly two-and-a-half hours, but finally Blair was satisfied that the loft was clean, and four small electronic devices floated in the bowl of water. The technique had worked exactly as Blair had thought it would; Jim had had no difficulty finding most of the bugs. The last one, placed under the kitchen cabinets, had given him some trouble due to interference from all the electronic devices in the kitchen, but, with some patient encouragement from Blair, he had managed to find it.

Blair disposed of the bugs and dumped the water out, giving a sigh of relief. "Man, am I glad that worked. I was getting pretty sick of writing everything down. You want to order a pizza?" He exited the kitchen to see Jim going up the stairs to their bedroom.

"Do what you want. I'm not hungry. I'm gonna go to bed." Jim said shortly.

Blair sighed, and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "At least let me check your hand," he said.

"It's fine," Jim retorted, and continued up the stairs. At the top he paused and turned to face Blair. "Are you coming in with me tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yeah," Blair replied.

Jim nodded. "I'm leaving at eight sharp. Don't be late or I'll leave you here." He turned his back on Blair and disappeared into the bedroom.

Blair blew out a long breath and scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. He had been hoping things would change once they returned to Cascade and got back into the normal swing of things, but this was not the direction of change he had been hoping for. Jim had gone from being morose and uncommunicative to just being a dick. And it had seemed to get worse the closer they got to Cascade and the loft.

He found a beer at the back of the fridge and went out on the balcony to drink it, slumping dispiritedly into one of the deck chairs. He knew that this was just Jim's way of expressing his frustration and anger at the situation he was in, but his patience with it was really wearing thin. He picked at the label on the beer bottle. He wished he could tell Jim more about his plans for the banquet, but he was pretty sure if he told Jim what he was planning Jim wouldn't agree to go along with it, plus he didn't think it would work if Jim was in on the details. Not that he was sure that it was going to work anyway.

He rolled the cool bottle over his forehead, which was starting to ache. _One week, just one more week, and then everything will be okay_, he told himself. _Just hang on, just bite your tongue and be patient for one more week_.

He stayed out on the balcony until he had finished the beer, then came inside and put it quietly in the recycling bin. Suddenly he felt exhausted. He decided to take a page from Jim's book, skip dinner, and just get some sleep.

As he headed for the stairs, though, he noticed something odd. Usually Jim took both their bags upstairs when they got home from a camping trip, but this time he'd left Blair's at the foot of the stairs. Blair frowned. They'd only been lovers for a few months, and he didn't yet feel like the upstairs bedroom was really his, even though he'd been spending all his nights up there since they got together. Maybe this was Jim's way of telling him that he needed some extra space, that he didn't want Blair up there. With a pang, Blair realized that Jim hadn't laid a hand on him – not even in a friendly gesture – since that night at the cabin. He swallowed over the sudden lump in his throat.

_Oh, fuck it_, he thought angrily. _I'm not going to interpret Ellison-speak this whole dammed week. If he wants me out of his bed he can damn well throw me out himself_. He grabbed his bag and headed up the stairs. Once upstairs, he stripped quietly to his boxers and pulled on a tank top. Jim was on his side, back to Blair. He didn't move or make a sound as Blair slid into bed next to him. Feeling miserable, Blair turned and set his alarm, then lay quietly, unable to sleep, watching the minutes tick by.

* * *

Simon raised his head at the sound of a soft knock to see Blair standing in his doorway. "Simon, can I talk to you?" he asked. 

Simon frowned at him. "Where's Jim?"

"I sent him out to get lunch," Blair replied. "I really need to talk to you and Megan - alone."

Simon gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Have a seat. Let me go get Connor," he said.

"Not here. Can you meet me in interrogation room two in a few minutes?" Simon glared at him and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Blair added, "Please, Simon, it's really important. And the two of you shouldn't come down together – tell her to wait a few minutes and then follow you." He gave Blair a piercing look, but closed his mouth and nodded.

He delivered the message to Connor, who appeared to take things in with slightly more equanimity, and then headed down to the interrogation rooms. As he entered, he noticed that Blair had locked the door to the observation portion of the room, and had deactivated the audio system. "You know, you need approval to shut this stuff off, Sandburg," he growled.

"Yeah, I know," Blair responded. "Here." He pushed a clipboard at Simon and pointed to the signature line.

Simon raised his eyebrows. "And would you care to fill me on why this is necessary?"

"When Megan gets here, I promise, I'll explain everything."

"Good. Once you explain everything, if I'm satisfied, I'll sign. Otherwise, _cadet_, your ass will be in a sling."

"Fine." Blair said shortly. Simon crossed his arms and waited silently for Megan. Once she had arrived, Blair set a white noise generator outside the door and activated it. He closed the door firmly and locked it from the inside.

His irritation rising, Simon said, "Sandburg, what the hell is going on? What's with all the cloak-and-dagger stuff?"

"Shutting off the audio and locking the observation room is to make sure no one overhears us. The white noise generator is to make sure Jim doesn't hear us."

"Hear us say what, Sandy?" Megan asked quietly.

Blair blew out his breath in a big sigh, and ran his hand through his hair. "Okay, you remember when I got kidnapped, a couple of months or so ago? Well, it turns out that the reason behind that was to elicit this…this state in Sentinels that's pretty rare – Burton called it 'hyper-rage'…"

Simon held up a hand. "Do I want to hear this?" he groaned.

"No, you probably don't," Blair snapped, "unless you _don't_ want to lose your best detective, in which case you'd better fucking well listen to me."

_The little punk_, thought Simon, and he opened his mouth to snap back, when he felt Megan's hand on his arm. He looked over at her and took in her serious expression, then looked back at Sandburg, suddenly noticing how pale he was, the dark shadows under his eyes, how his hands were shaking slightly. _Damn_, he thought, _the kid looks like crap_.

"Okay," he said grimly, "I'm listening."

"Some black-ops branch of the government wanted to cause Jim to experience a state of hyper-rage so that they could use that to make him into some kind of super-assassin." Simon gave him an incredulous look, and Blair threw his hands up in the air and started pacing around the room. "You think I don't know how ridiculous that sounds? You think I didn't practice this, didn't try to figure out some way of telling you guys that _didn't_ sound like some B-grade Cold War sci-fi movie?"

"Dare I ask exactly how it is that you know all this?" Simon asked.

So Blair told them. When he'd finished, he looked at Simon and said softly, "Simon, man, why on earth would I make this all up?" and Simon had to admit that he had a point. Blair might have a talent for obfuscation, but there was no way he would be anything less than truthful when Jim's life was at stake. It was just so…surreal – shadowy government agents, hypnosis, suggestions, covert assassins, hyper-rage - he was having a hard time accepting it.

Blair rapped sharply on the table, breaking into Simon's reverie. "Here's the thing. The test case is this benefit dinner we've been asked to cover at the end of the week – Jim's been programmed to kill the governor at the dinner."

"_What?_" both Simon and Megan shouted.

Blair nodded grimly.

"Sandy," Megan said slowly, "does Jim know about this? How come he isn't in on this with us?"

Blair sighed, dragged his hand through his hair again. "Yeah, he knows, Megan. He isn't here for two reasons. One, he isn't…ah…dealing too well with the idea. He's not really in a state of mind to help us. Two, he can't know too much about what we're doing, because then it won't work."

"So you've got a plan?" Simon said.

"Yeah. And I'm going to need a lot of help. But no one – especially Jim – can know what we're planning to do. We have to keep this strictly need-to-know. Okay?"

Simon and Megan both nodded.

* * *

Megan watched Simon as Blair finished explaining his plan. The big captain sat quietly for a moment, chewing ferociously on the unlit cigar in his mouth, then reached over for the clipboard on the table and signed it, handing it to Blair. "All right," he said, "I'll get things started on my end. We'll touch base tomorrow. How do you want to do that?" 

"Let's plan on meeting back in here at lunchtime. I think I can either get Jim out of the building or find an excuse to get away."

"Do you want me to stick him with paperwork or something, keep him off the streets?" Simon asked.

"No…God, no." Blair replied. "First of all, it'll drive him crazy and he's stressed out enough as it is. Second, I'm counting on Thomas having an opportunity to snatch him before the dinner."

Megan stared at him in amazement. "You _want_ them to get their hands on him?"

"Yeah. I want them to think that everything is still go on their end. If they suspect something's up and decide to cancel the test run, who knows if we'll be able to figure out where and when the next one is, let alone do anything to stop it."

"Won't they know you've been making your own suggestions?" asked Megan.

"I hope not," Blair said grimly, "I've been trying to keep them hidden."

Simon nodded, and said gruffly, "Okay, then, we'll check in tomorrow. Hang in there, kid." He clapped Blair on the back once and left.

Megan looked at Blair dubiously. "Sandy, are you sure this is a good idea?"

Blair laughed, a short, sharp bark devoid of humor. "A good idea? No, Megan, I'm not at all sure this is a good idea. Unfortunately, it's the only idea I have…or at least the only one that seems like it has a chance in hell of working." He scrubbed his hands over his face tiredly.

Megan felt a pang of concern. He reminded her so much of her kid brother at times. "You want to go get something to eat, mate? Get out of the office for a while?"

"No, thanks, I asked Jim to bring me something from the deli. I'll just eat at my desk. I'm not really very hungry anyway." He started turning the audio system back on.

"If you don't take care of yourself, he's going to know something's up…"

Blair gave her a forced smile. "Nah, he's…he's not paying much attention to me these days. This whole thing has got him…well, it's really hard for him. He's a little bit of a control freak, you know?"

"No, you're kidding me, really?" Megan replied, heavy sarcasm in her voice.

That elicited an authentic chuckle from Blair. "Oh, you have no idea. Did I ever tell you that he used to separate our leftovers by color?" Megan snorted, and Blair opened the door and shut off the white noise generator. "Remind me, when this is all over, to tell you about the never-ending list of house rules…" he said, as they left the room and headed for the elevator.

* * *

Megan pushed through the glass doors at the entrance to Cascade PD, nodding at the night guard. "Forget something?" he called out to her. 

"Housekeys," she said, with a rueful smile. Although, in all honesty, finding that her keys were missing had provided her with a much-needed excuse to get away. Brown and Dolensky had invited her out for a quick dinner, only to spend the entire time talking about Jim and how strangely he had been acting recently. Megan had played dumb, feigning surprise as Henri and Rafe provided her with numerous examples of the un-Ellison like behavior they had witnessed over the past few days. When the topic had moved to hypotheses for the cause of said behavior – everything from new girlfriend to midlife crisis to the first stages of dementia – Megan silently contemplated how the truth of the matter was even stranger than anyone could think.

Rafe had even said, jokingly, that maybe Ellison and Sandburg were having a lovers' spat. Henri had laughed so hard that he had gotten beer down his windpipe and had spent several minutes coughing, his partner patting him on the back. And Megan had sat there, joining in the laughter outwardly, but inwardly thinking, _For detectives, you blokes are so blind it's not even funny_.

She took the elevator up to the sixth floor and entered the Major Crimes bullpen. The room was dark; she crossed the room, snapped on her desk light, and started searching for her keys. She had just laid her hands on them when she heard a soft sound behind her. She whirled, reaching for the gun she kept in her purse.

Another desk lamp went on and she saw Blair, sitting at his desk, looking at her sheepishly, waving his hands in the air. "Sorry, Megan, I didn't mean to frighten you."

She exhaled, the gun slipping from her fingers back into her purse, the rush of relief surprising her. "I guess we've all been on edge lately, huh?" She looked Blair over critically. Even in the poor light, he didn't look good. The dark circles under his eyes had deepened, and looked like he had lost weight. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him smile. "Sandy, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"Oh, I just needed some air," he replied, not meeting her eyes. "Told Jim I was going to go get some beer."

"You ought to get some rest. Tomorrow night's the big event."

"Yeah," he said, sighing. "Not really sleeping so well lately, though."

Trying for a lighter tone, she smiled and said, "I'll have to talk to your partner about that, then." She was unprepared for the sudden look of anguish in his eyes. Stunned, she crossed the room quickly and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Sandy, everything's going to be okay. Once this is all over, things will get back to normal, you'll see."

He smiled sadly. "Ah, Megan, I wish I could believe that. But I think I've really screwed things up this time." He rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.

"Look," she said resolutely, "even if the suggestions you planted don't work, Simon and I will be there, and we'll both be looking out for him. There's no way either of us are going to let anything happen to Jim."

Blair shot her a grateful look, and patted her hand where it rested on his shoulder. "I know that, and I really appreciate it. I don't know what I would have done without your help, and Simon's. But that's not what I meant." He paused, and gave her an odd, twisted smile. "You know what? Jim hasn't touched me once since this whole thing began. He used to touch me all the time – even before we became lovers…" his voice broke, "…like he just had to have some kind of physical contact whenever I was nearby. But since we came back from the cabin…nothing…" He trailed off, closing his eyes, and Megan could see a brief glimmer of tears under his lashes.

"Oh, Sandy," she breathed, leaning down and pulling him into a hug. "Don't worry, it'll be okay. He loves you, I know he does. He's just…preoccupied right now." She felt Blair's arms tighten around her, felt him sigh and rest his head on her shoulder. She held him for a few minutes, then took his shoulders firmly, lowering her head so she could meet his eyes. "And if he gives you any grief, I'll personally kick his ass, I promise." He chuckled at that and Megan stood, smiling. "You should get on home," she said, tousling his hair.

"Yeah, I will," he said, smiling faintly, "in a few minutes." She hesitated, and he waved her towards the door. "Go, go. I'm fine." As she turned to leave, though, he caught her hand and she turned back towards him. "Thanks, Megan," he said, still smiling. "I really needed that."

She squeezed his hand and smiled in return. "No worries, mate. Anytime." She headed out of the bullpen. As she was waiting for the elevator, she turned back and saw the forlorn figure sitting alone at the desk. She was a little surprised to realize that she had meant it about the ass-kicking. _Ellison_, she thought, _you had better make it up to him once this is all over, or else you'll be dealing with me_.

* * *

Jim looked out over the crowded ballroom from the upper level balcony. People circulated beneath him, cheerfully greeting each other, exchanging hugs and kisses. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. The mingled scents of perfumes and aftershaves were giving him a headache, and the effort it took to screen out the low-level buzz of conversation was beginning to wear on his nerves. 

He shifted his shoulders, uncomfortable in the formal clothes. The governor had insisted that the Major Crimes detectives blend in with the crowd tonight. Not even dress uniforms would do; everyone had to be in tuxes – or, in Connor's case, formal evening wear. He remembered the very explicit, and very loud, conversation she had had with Simon in the bullpen when she had found out, asking him exactly _where_ was she supposed to keep her gun?

He rubbed his throbbing head again and wished that Blair were there. Blair would help him screen out all this crap, help him dial down the pain from this headache. It was always easier when Blair was there. But he had specifically requested that Blair not be here tonight. He had made it a personal request of Simon, in private. He didn't know what Simon had told Blair, and he didn't care. All he cared about was that, this time, he wasn't going to let himself get distracted from his plan. And that Blair wouldn't be the one to find him.

Jim sighed and sat down on one of the balcony seats, rubbing his temples harder. He knew that he was being an asshole, had been since coming back from the cabin, in fact. He couldn't explain it to anyone, not even Blair. Blair usually understood everything, but he wouldn't understand this. Jim understood, he knew himself, knew that if things didn't go well, he was prepared to do what was necessary. He reached down and touched his spare gun in its ankle holster, felt for the stiletto taped to his ribs. Because he sure as hell wasn't going to give Thomas and his men what they wanted. No matter what.

After all the days of frustration and inactivity, it was almost a relief to finally be here, to finally be contemplating the end of all this, even if it was going to involve his death. Although he was thankful for the time he had had to get his affairs in order.

A commotion from the ballroom below drew his attention. People were being encouraged to find their seats; the evening's festivities were starting. Jim stood and headed downstairs. Once in the ballroom, he found a small alcove in the back where he could stand, relatively unseen, but still view most of the room.

The governor was speaking now, welcoming the attendees – some of whom had paid upwards of $300 a plate for this meal – and expounding at length about whatever supposed charity or face-saving function this event was supposed to be funding. He didn't pay attention. He had never cared for these things, and cared even less for them now. He caught a glimpse of Simon, seated at one of the tables, but saw none of the other Major Crimes personnel around him.

Suddenly there was a blond man at his elbow, dressed formally, and he caught a whiff of some unusual scent. He felt the now-familiar wave of cold move down his body, knew the blond man was talking, but couldn't hear him. He was distanced from everything, elbowed aside from his own consciousness as a centuries-old warrior instinct took over.

* * *

The Sentinel raised his head, found the woman in the long green dress standing at the podium, speaking. The room was filled with people and noise, but it didn't matter. She was the one. She had hurt his Guide. He effortlessly focused his senses on her, sight and hearing and smell. It was all clear in his mind. She had hurt his Guide. He had to kill her. The thought was like a command in his mind. Kill the woman. She hurt your Guide. 

He reached back and unholstered his weapon in one fluid move, racked the slide back. He started to raise the gun to take aim, but there was a hand on his arm. He looked down, and saw…his Guide.

"Jim, I'm fine," his Guide said. "I'm not hurt. It's okay. You don't have to do this."

The Sentinel paused, confused. It had been so clear. His Guide had been hurt. That woman was the one responsible. He had to kill her. The command was still there, but now he was confused. His Guide was here.

He looked at his Guide. He was wearing formal clothes, but his shirt was untucked and he was missing his tie. He looked slightly odd and out-of-place. The Sentinel reached out and grasped his Guide's arm, brought his senses to bear on him.

"That's right," his Guide said. "Use your senses, you'll see, I'm telling the truth. I'm not hurt. You don't have to do this."

His Guide was right, the Sentinel realized. He was not hurt. He dropped his Guide's arm and looked back towards the woman at the podium. He realized that he still heard the command – kill the woman – but it was growing fainter. Another command was emerging, growing in intensity. He looked back at his Guide, confused, seeking help.

And found his Guide's intense blue gaze locked with his own. "Follow your instincts," he said.

The command became stronger and clearer. Shoot the Guide.

The Sentinel frowned. That could not be right. His instincts told him to protect his Guide. But the command was strong, and getting stronger. Shoot the Guide.

He shook his head sharply, feeling his anger rise. He mutely sought help from his Guide again, searching his face. "Follow your instincts," repeated his Guide, in a low, fervent voice. Shoot the Guide, came the command, still increasing in intensity. Shoot the Guide.

Shoot the Guide.

He raised his gun and placed it against his Guide's chest.

* * *

Jim recoiled as Blair moved into his field of vision. What the hell was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be here! Was he even real? He struggled against the dreamlike, passive state he was trapped in due to the hyper-rage, but was unable to move his body at all. The Sentinel instincts were still firmly in control, although he was aware of everything that was happening. Aware that Blair was really there, aware that he had grasped Blair by the arm and gone over him with his senses. He was dimly aware of what Blair was saying, more strongly aware of the change in suggestion. Shoot the Guide. Jim resisted frantically, but he was completely helpless. He could only watch in horror as he brought the gun up to rest on Blair's chest, as his finger tightened on the trigger and the gun went off. 

The sound echoed endlessly in his ears.

Blair staggered backwards a few steps, mouth open, surprise in his wide blue eyes. A red spot blossomed and grew on the white shirt. His eyes rolled up in his head; his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor.

_NO! BLAIR!_ Jim screamed, although no sound came out of his mouth. He sensed something shatter in his head – or was it his heart? He saw the ground rushing up at him and then everything went black.

* * *

Cannon pulled the sedan into the dark shadows in the lee of the building and cut the engine. He sat quietly for several minutes, waiting. He was reasonably sure that he had not been followed on his way here from the governor's mansion, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious. After several minutes he was confident of his escape. He exited the car and slipped into the deserted warehouse. 

Thomas was standing in front of a desk in a glass-fronted office to the left of the entrance, his back to Cannon. Cannon could see that he was watching television, could see the reporter from KCDE News reporting from in front of the governor's home. He saw 'breaking news' crawl across the bottom of the television screen. Quietly he entered the office.

Thomas turned, his face a mask of rage. "What the hell happened?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Cannon protested. "Everything looked like it was going according to plan. I presented the scent and it looked like the suggestion was working. Ellison was focused on the governor, had drawn his weapon, when Sandburg showed up and started talking to him. Then, all of a sudden, Ellison shot Sandburg and the place erupted in chaos. I barely managed to get out of there."

Thomas was looking at him with a mixture of distrust and disbelief. "Did you say _Ellison_ shot Sandburg?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yes, sir," Cannon affirmed. "I saw the whole thing. Ellison was in the back of the room, so I was able to approach him without anyone noticing the two of us. Once I had presented the scent trigger, I moved away but kept Ellison in view. When Sandburg showed up, Ellison looked confused. He grabbed Sandburg's arm, and Sandburg was saying something to him, but I couldn't hear it. And then Ellison turned and shot him. Right in the chest. Sandburg was bleeding. And then Ellison just collapsed."

"That's not what they're saying on television," Thomas snarled.

Cannon was nonplussed. "It's…it's not?"

"No." Cannon noticed that a digital video recorder was attached to the television; Thomas pointed a remote at the recorder and the news footage started to rewind. Cannon started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had a very bad feeling about what Thomas was about to reveal.

The television footage had rewound to show a small, grainy black-and-white picture of a man leaving the mansion and running across the grounds. Thomas stopped the rewind and hit play. The voice of the news anchor echoed in the small office. "…indicate that both Detective Ellison and Cadet Sandburg were injured when they tried to stop this man…" The picture expanded to fill the screen. Although grainy, the figure was clearly recognizable as Cannon. "…from attempting to assassinate the governor." The news anchor's face reappeared. "Sources report that both men are in stable condition after being treated at Cascade General. The suspect escaped the mansion shortly after the assassination attempt and is still at large. Police have set up roadblocks on all major thoroughfares in and around Cascade, and are also monitoring the port. If you have any information, or have seen this man, please call the Tipsters Hotline at 800-555-9824. "

Thomas snapped the television off and turned to Cannon. "We don't tolerate failure in this organization, Mr. Cannon." He opened a desk drawer and drew out a gun. Cannon opened his mouth to plead his case, then shut it. He thought about running, but knew that it was futile. Even if the Cascade Police found him first, the NSA would get him eventually. He closed his eyes in resignation.

The metallic click of the trigger was the last thing he heard.

* * *

It ran like an endless loop in his head. His hand, holding the gun, pulling the trigger. The shot echoing. Blair staggering backwards, surprised and shocked, blood spreading across his chest. Repeat. Repeat. 

He had shot Blair.

He knew that his body was in a place where people talked quickly and urgently and did things to keep him alive. He could hear them, faintly; was dimly aware that things were going on there at a frantic pace. But he was in _this_ place, a different place, a cold thick gray place, alone except for the repeating loop. Hand, gun, surprise, blood. Repeat. Repeat.

They must have found out. They must have found out about Blair's attempts to block the hypnotic programming and had put in a new suggestion. Shoot the Guide.

And he had. Hand, gun, surprise, blood. Repeat. Repeat.

He felt despair settle into every limb,weighing down every cell in his body, securing him within the cold gray thickness. Which was fine, actually. He didn't want to go back to that other place. Life was too hard, would be too hard without his Guide there to help him. Better to stay in this place, whatever it was.

Maybe this was Hell? That would be appropriate. Spend eternity viewing and re-viewing his biggest mistakes. Gun, surprise, blood. Repeat. Repeat. Maybe after a few thousand years he could change the scene. Maybe to the time that he packed up all Blair's stuff and kicked him out of the loft. Or maybe to the time when he kissed Alex on the beach. Certainly there were enough mistakes to choose from.

But for now, he had this. Gun, surprise, blood. Repeat. Repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

* * *

"Okay, here's a prescription for some Vicoden…yes, I know you don't want it," Dr. Carmichael said in exasperation, "but just in case you change your mind…" 

"I won't," said Blair. "Just some extra-strength Tylenol will be fine."

Dr. Carmichael glared at him and handed him a second prescription. "Humor me. And if you start feeling any kind of sharp, sudden pain, or have difficulty breathing, you call us immediately, do you understand? The X-rays were clear, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a hairline fracture that we missed that could get worse. I know you had a vest on, but it looked like you were shot from pretty close range – sometimes problems can show up later."

Blair nodded. "I promise."

Her eyes narrowed and she stepped closer to Blair. She grasped his chin and tilted his face, examining the fading bruise across his cheekbone with a practiced eye. "Nice bruise. How did you get that one?" she said sternly.

"I fell down," he said, with complete honesty.

"We ought to get some X-rays of that as well…"

"No, no, it's not necessary," Blair said, waving his hands. "I've had it looked at. It's fine, just taking a while to fade."

Dr. Carmichael sighed. "All right, then you can go home. Oh, and here's a shirt to replace yours." She handed him one of the hospital's scrub shirts.

"Maybe you guys ought to embroider my name on one of these, I'm in here so often," Blair said, grinning, as he pulled the shirt on over his head. Dr. Carmichael opened her mouth to retort but was interrupted by a soft knock, and the appearance of Megan, still dressed in her midnight-blue evening gown.

"Sandy, can I come in?" she asked.

"Sure, Megan, I'm decent," he replied, smiling. "Thanks, Dr. Carmichael." The doctor patted him on the shoulder and headed for the door as Megan entered.

"Don't forget, call us immediately if there's any change," she said. "And rethink that Vicoden – you're going to be pretty sore in the morning." Blair waved at her and turned eagerly to Megan. "So, did the trick with the surveillance camera work?"

"Like a charm, mate," she said. "All the stations are reporting that you and Jim were hurt trying to thwart an assassination attempt on the governor. No one seems to have picked up on Jim's being a part of the attempt. And everyone is showing that photo of – Cannon, you said his name is?"

"Yeah," Blair said, with a satisfied smile. "With any luck, we'll apprehend him. At the very least it'll make things difficult for them for the next few days." He blew his breath out in a huge sigh. "Man, am I glad _that's_ all over." He glanced up at Megan, grinning. "Jim must be driving you guys crazy, waiting for me. I'm amazed you managed to keep him out of the room." At the look on her face, his smile suddenly faded and he felt his guts ice over. "Megan? What is it? Is something wrong with Jim?"

"Well, no, nothing seems to be physically wrong with him, Sandy, it's just…he won't wake up."

Blair looked at her, alarmed, then headed out of the room and looked down the hallway. He found Jim's room easily by the tall black man in a tuxedo standing outside of it and ran up to him. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Sandburg, I thought you said you fixed it so he would be fine afterwards." Simon said irritably.

"Well, jeez, Simon, it's not like hypnosis is an exact science or anything,"…_or I know what I'm doing_, he thought. "The recovery suggestion was something I thought of at the last minute, I didn't get as much time to reinforce it as I did the other ones." He ran his hand through his hair nervously. "What do the doctors say?"

Megan had joined them by this time and she chimed in. "They say his vitals are stable; they can't find any medical reason for him not to wake up, but he won't respond to anything. Not pain, not pressure, not even sternum rub."

Blair looked at the two of them, his concern growing. "Well, maybe if I go in and talk to him…"

Megan took Simon's arm. "Why don't we go get some coffee, Captain?" she said sweetly. Raising her eyebrows at Blair, she said, "You want some coffee, mate?"

"Yeah, Megan," he replied absently, mind on what could be going on with Jim, "that'd be great." Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and walked in.

Jim lay on the hospital bed, still and pale. Blair checked the monitors nervously as he approached. Everything looked normal. No reason why he shouldn't be just opening his eyes and greeting Blair. Maybe it was some weird kind of zone?

Worth a try. Once at Jim's side, Blair put out his hand and stroked his arm gently. "Hey, Jim, c'mon, come back to me. Hear my voice, come on back." No response. "Hey, we're all a little worried about you, man. Come on. No zoning, Jim. Listen to my voice, follow my voice, come back…" He continued in this vein for several minutes, but no response. Jim's vitals didn't even change, according to the monitors.

Blair frowned. It had never taken that long for him to get Jim to come out of a zone. So that wasn't the answer. He glanced nervously over at the door, making sure no one was peeking inside, then leaned over and kissed Jim gently. Jim's lips were warm and firm, but completely unresponsive. Blair stroked the backs of his fingers down Jim's cheek a few times and deliberately spoke into his ear in a suggestive, husky voice. "C'mon, lover, wake up, huh?" With another quick glance at the door, he bent down and kissed Jim again, this time using quite a bit more finesse. Still no response. Jim's mouth wasn't rigid, but wasn't slack either. Just…there.

Blair drew back and bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, considering his options. Maybe he was being too subtle. Shrugging slightly, he clapped his hands together loudly a few times and yelled, "Ellison! C'mon! Up and at 'em!"

To his great surprise, Jim's eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright in the bed. His eyes found Blair's and registered sheer astonishment as he grasped Blair's shoulders. "Blair?" he gasped.

Blair grinned, feeling relief sweep through him. "Hey, man, welcome back. You gave us quite…" but his last words were cut off as Jim swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pulled Blair between his knees into a fierce desperate embrace.

"Oh, my God, Blair, you're okay, you're okay…" Jim was whispering raggedly in his ear. Blair put his arms around him and realized that Jim was trembling.

_Oh, shit_, he thought, _the recovery suggestion didn't work right. He doesn't know I was wearing a vest…he thinks he really shot me_. He rubbed Jim's back in gentle circles, making soothing noises. "Hey, it's okay; it's okay, man, I'm fine. I'm fine, Jim, really…" Jim grabbed his shoulders again and held him slightly away from him, one hand sliding under Blair's shirt and running over his torso, fingers seeking. Blair winced as Jim hit the bruised area; Jim stopped, looked at him, then yanked his shirt up and examined the bruise. His fingers traced it slowly, gently, then he pulled Blair's shirt down and looked at him again. His eyes were wild, haunted.

"I shot you," he said hoarsely.

Blair held Jim's face in his hands, forced Jim to meet his gaze. "Hey. Listen to me. It's okay. I'm fine. I was wearing a vest." Jim's eyes closed in relief, and when they opened, they were slightly less wild. He pulled Blair into another close embrace, his hands running gently over Blair's body.

"You looked so surprised," he murmured gently.

"That's 'cause it _hurt_, man!" Blair said, aggrieved. "I forgot how much it hurts, even with the vest on." He relaxed into Jim's embrace, shivering slightly as Jim's hands roamed over his body. Man, he had missed this, he had _so_ missed Jim's touch. He sighed, wrapping his arms loosely around Jim's waist and resting his forehead on Jim's. Then Jim's mouth was on his, warm and hungry and insistent, one hand moving to the back of Blair's neck. Blair groaned involuntarily… _so missed this_, he thought, as he responded eagerly to Jim's kiss. There was something niggling at him, though… something at the back of his mind that he needed to tell Jim…and Megan and Simon were going to be coming in in just a few minutes… He put his hands on Jim's chest to put some distance between them, but somehow his hands tightened into fists, clutching the front of Jim's hospital gown, pulling him close, all rational thought lost in the rush of sensation. Suddenly, he felt Jim stiffen and pull away. A little unsteadily, he looked at Jim and found him with a confused look on his face.

"There was blood. You were bleeding." Jim said.

Still dazed from the kiss, Blair replied absentmindedly, "Oh, yeah – that was my idea. Got Simon to help me rig up some dye packs on the vest. Worked pretty well, huh?"

There was a cold, shocked silence. "You _wanted _me to think I'd shot you? You _wanted_ me to think you were hurt?"

Blair came to full attention at the danger in Jim's tone. "Well, not wanted you to, man, but it was necessary in order to…" Jim cut him off abruptly.

"How did you know they were going to give me the suggestion to shoot you?"

Blair felt his heart sink. The recovery suggestion hadn't worked at all. He was going to have to explain everything from the beginning. His stomach in knots, he said, "That…uh…that wasn't _their _suggestion, Jim…it…it was mine."

He didn't even see Jim move. But, suddenly, he was up against the wall, Jim's hands holding both his biceps in a crushing grip, holding him level with his eyes. The coldest eyes Blair had ever seen. "Let me get this straight. _You_ planted the suggestion in my head that I should shoot you." His voice was flat and as cold as his eyes.

"Jim, if you'll just let me explain…"

"What the HELL were you thinking?"

"I told you, I was wearing a vest, and…"

Jim snarled at him, furious. "Vests fail, Sandburg! And what if I had decided to shoot you in the head, huh? No vest there, was there?"

Blair put his hands up in protest. "Jim, it was the only way to…" He was cut off again when Jim pushed him up against the wall, hands still clenched around his arms, face inches from Blair's. He had never seen Jim so angry.

"Did you stop to think how I would feel about it? Or didn't that matter?"

"Of course it mattered, but I'm telling you, I had no choice! It was the only thing…"

Jim slammed him back against the wall. "I don't want to hear it!" He let go of Blair suddenly and stalked across the room. "Jesus, Sandburg," he said, rubbing his hands across his face, "I'm never going to get that image out of my head."

Blair's hold on his temper, which had been fraying for some time, suddenly snapped. "Well, I guess that makes us even, then," he shouted, fists clenched at his sides, "because I've got an image that I can't get out of my head, either – and that's the image of you with a gun to your head! I'll do anything I can think of to avoid that, including getting you to shoot me, if that's what it takes!"

Jim turned towards him, his face blank and expressionless. Any hopes Blair had had that he could explain his actions to Jim in a way that would salvage their relationship died within him at the sight of that face. He had been a fool, completely clueless, completely deluding himself. He should have known from the way Jim had stopped touching him, stopped paying attention to him, that Jim's feelings towards him had changed. He had lost him the minute he initiated the suggestion. _I didn't have any choice_, he thought desperately, but it didn't matter. The end result was still the same.

He was having trouble breathing, a tight band contracting around his chest that he recognized as one of the first signs of panic. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him; the thought crossed his mind that he was either going to throw up or break down in tears, neither of which he wanted to do at this moment or in this place. He wanted to leave; he had to get out of here before he lost it completely. Barely aware of what he was saying, he ground out, "You know what, buddy, I have _had_ it with this. Screw you, and the horse you rode in on. I am _outta_ here." He turned, and blindly slammed through the door and into the hallway. He dimly heard Megan calling his name, but he wasn't willing to face her or Simon. He pushed through the exit door and headed for the parking lot.

* * *

Megan was coming down the hall, carrying Blair's coffee, when she registered the sounds of both Jim's and Blair's voices coming from Jim's room. The smile that started on her face was quickly erased when she realized that the two men were yelling. Then the door flew open and Blair bolted out of the room. He glanced over at her and she was shocked at the look of abject misery on his face. But before she could say anything more than "Sandy!" he was gone, down the hallway and out the exit door. 

Megan dropped the coffee on the floor and stiff-armed the door to Jim's room open. She took three quick strides across the room and slapped Jim across the face, hard. "You are a right bastard," she hissed. "Do you have any idea what he's been going through this week, what he's put himself through just to protect you, to save your sorry ass? And you turn on him? That's your thanks, that's what he gets for saving your miserable life? Let me tell you something, mate – I may not have your overactive senses, or whatever, but I sure as hell know he deserves a lot better from you."

She moved to slap him again, but this time he grabbed her wrist, holding it gently but with unmistakable strength. "Connor," he said quietly, "I got it, thanks. You're absolutely right. I'm an idiot and a fool and I made a huge mistake. Now, do you want to help me find my clothes so I can get out of here and find Sandburg and apologize, or would you rather slap me again?"

* * *

Blair banged through the door of the loft and slammed it behind him. Without breaking stride he headed into his old bedroom, pulled his duffle out from under the bed and started furiously throwing clothes into it. _Just enough for a few days_, he thought. _I'll come back sometime when Jim is gone and get the rest of my stuff_. 

It was the same thing all over again, just like all of their fights over the past year. He would try desperately to explain himself, Jim would refuse to listen, he would step back and give Jim some space and wait for the apology that never came. Things would only get progressively more fucked up from there, until somehow he was the one that ended up apologizing. Or at least the one who turned his world upside down trying to fix it. Then things would just go back to the status quo, nothing would ever get said about it, and he'd end up feeling angry and at the same time guilty, like he'd done something wrong. He'd thought things would change when they became lovers, that communicating would get easier for them, but apparently not.

A part of him knew that his anger was disproportionate, knew that he was purposely fueling it, but he didn't care. Anger was good, anger kept him moving. Anger had helped clear out the panic, settled his stomach, enabled him to get to his car and drive to the loft. It was like a force on his brain, on his muscles and nerves, urging, _go, go, go, go_! And a part of him knew that the anger was keeping something else at bay, something worse. Somehow he knew that when he stopped moving, there was something terrible lying in wait for him. Something hiding in the tall grass, just outside his peripheral vision, watching him. Something awful was going to get him, unless he could just keep moving, just keep going.

_What the hell_, he thought, _maybe I should just get out of here for good. Just leave Cascade altogether. Head north, or south, or east. Or even west_…a little bubble of hysterical laughter escaped him at the image of him driving the Volvo into the Pacific Ocean. If he left now, he could be far away by morning. He looked around the room at his belongings. _I don't need most of this stuff – just leave it, just go_. His brain agreed. _Go, go, go, go_! it shouted at him. There were just a few things that he wanted to take, though, sentimental items.

He went to the nightstand next to his old bed and pulled the top drawer open, digging through the contents inside. Just a few things – a small carved wolf one of Naomi's boyfriends had made for him; a letter from Naomi, sent three weeks ago from a meditation retreat in France; a small piece of stained glass from Brother Marcus' workshop at St. Sebastian. He rooted through the drawer and found a small box to put them all in. He put the box in his duffle and turned back to shut the drawer.

And stopped.

There was a framed picture on top of the nightstand. He picked it up, hardly aware of what he was doing. It was a picture Simon had taken of him and Jim the last time the three of them had gone camping, one of his favorite pictures. It wasn't an unusual picture - Jim was cleaning fish; he was sitting back on his heels telling Jim some story, laughing, hands in the air. But the reason it was one of his favorite pictures was because Simon had – unintentionally - managed to catch Jim giving him that shy, warm smile he showed so rarely.

He was never going to see that smile again.

_Go, go, go, go, go_! his brain screamed at him, but it was too late. He couldn't move, couldn't take his eyes away from the picture. His muscles wouldn't respond, his limbs wouldn't obey him. The thing in the tall grass had him now, had him dead to rights and he was doomed.

He whimpered as the events of the last few hours caught up with him like the blow from a sledgehammer. He had intentionally destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to him in his life. He had purposely hurt his partner, his lover, the other half of his soul, the best person he had ever known. He had, knowingly and consciously, become the latest in a long line of people to whom Jim had trusted his heart only to see them rip it out and trample it brutally. William. Grace. Stephen. Carolyn. Lila. Veronica. And now him.

His knees buckled and he slid helplessly to the ground. He clutched the picture to his chest as if it could somehow protect him, somehow shield him from this feeling that his own heart was being torn out by its roots. He closed his eyes and a silent howl of pain stretched his mouth as dry, agonized sobs boiled up out of his gut and racked his body.

He'd always wondered if the adage was true, if you could really die from a broken heart. Sure felt like it.

* * *

Jim backed the truck up, barely glancing in the rearview mirror to see if there was anyone behind him, spun the wheel, and headed out of the hospital parking lot at top speed. 

_This is it, Ellison_, he thought. _It's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, and you're at bat with two strikes. One more strike and you're out_.

His first reaction to Blair's outburst had been shock. Shock and shame. He hadn't wanted Blair to know what had happened that night, how weak he'd been in the face of adversity.

Then, almost immediately, his brain had started filling with information. Some new suggestion had apparently been triggered; he heard Blair's voice, explaining about the suggestion, why it was necessary, the steps he had taken to make sure he would be safe. Apparently this was supposed to have been triggered right after the shooting, so that he would know that Blair was okay, that it was all part of the plan.

He'd wanted to say something to Blair, let him know what was happening, but he couldn't speak through the sensory barrage in his head. He could see, though, and smell, and he knew that Blair was on the verge of panic. Before he could react, before he could respond, Blair had spun around and left. He couldn't hear what Blair had said, but his body language had clearly communicated that he had reached the end of his rope.

He'd screwed up again, he realized, just like in every fight they'd had over the last year. Unable to deal with his fear, he'd become angry instead, and lashed out at Blair without reason, without giving him a chance to explain. It had become a conditioned response for him, like the damned dogs Blair had been telling him about, like drooling at the sound of a bell.

_You only get three strikes, Ellison_, he thought angrily. _He gave up his life for you, and then he gave up his dreams, and now he's giving up his heart. And if you can't figure out a way to get past this idiotic reflex, this total inability you have to talk to and listen to him when you're afraid, you're going to lose him – for good this time._

He was suddenly struck with the utter conviction that Blair was, right at this moment, intending to leave Cascade for good. He had to hurry. He didn't have much time. Knowing that he'd probably hear about it from Simon later, he stuck the red strobe light on his dashboard and activated it, flooring the accelerator.

* * *

_Go. Go. Go._ But even his brain was exhausted, now, and the faint commands no longer had sway over his body. They were just dim echoes in his head. 

He was lying on the floor, still clutching the picture, gripped by inertia so profound that he wasn't sure how he managed to continue breathing. His body was heavy, made of clay, made of lead, and he couldn't move at all. Didn't want to move, really. All he could do, all he wanted to do, was stare at the weave of the rug in front of him. It was a complex pattern, and if he focused on it then he could keep the other thoughts and feelings at bay. If he focused on it, maybe the thing in the grass wouldn't be able to find him again.

_Move. Get out._

He ignored the echo, and focused on the rug, because if you couldn't see the predators, then they couldn't see you.

He felt the floor beneath him shake slightly and wondered what it was. Then the sensation became clearer, resolved, became sound and movement, became attached to knowledge he already carried somewhere in his head. Someone was coming up the steps towards the loft. Coming fast, taking the steps two by two.

_Move!_ roared his brain. _You have to get out of here!_

He couldn't do it, couldn't see Jim again, couldn't tolerate seeing that blank, emotionless look again. He wouldn't survive it. A bolt of fear went through him, giving him the strength to move. Abruptly he was up and off the floor, grabbing the duffle and lunging for the doors.

* * *

Jim took the stairs to the loft two at a time and was inside when Blair came barreling out of his old room. He was carrying a duffle bag in one hand; the other was clutching a picture frame to his chest. His heartbeat was rapid and erratic. He slid to a stop in front of Jim, and in a low, hollow voice, said, "Let me go." 

Jim planted himself in front of the door and quietly replied, "No."

Blair skittered off towards the balcony doors and for one terrifying moment Jim thought he was going to go out and over the side of the balcony to get away. But Blair hesitated, then spun away and came to a stop by the end of the couch. "What do you _want_ from me?" he whispered, in the same hollow, flat voice.

Jim carefully threw the bolts on the door and fastened the chain. Not that Blair couldn't undo them, but if he ran they should slow him down long enough for Jim to catch him. He slipped his coat off and hung it up, along with his gun and holster, then made his way cautiously over to the couch.

Now that he was close to Blair, and Blair was still, Jim felt a chill of fear at his appearance. Blair's skin had a gray pallor, and the dark shadows under his eyes were prominent. His eyes were flat and dull, and he wouldn't look at Jim. His heart was still pounding like a runaway train, and he didn't smell right either – a bitter, sharp odor. Jim reached out for him, but Blair flinched away and hissed, "Don't touch me."

"Okay, okay," Jim said, hands up. He needed to calm Blair down; he was worried that he was going to have a heart attack or something. "C'mon, sit down. Please. I want to talk to you." He sat on the coffee table. Blair perched on the end of the couch across from him, still clutching his duffle and the picture frame, eyes on the floor.

Jim cleared his throat and chose his words carefully. "You wanted to tell me something, Chief, back at the hospital. You were trying to explain something to me."

Blair's eyes remained fixed on the floor. "You didn't want to hear it."

"I know I said that," Jim replied gently. "I was wrong. I'm sorry. I do want to hear it."

"You were really angry at me."

Jim rubbed his hands over his face, his frustration building. _You can't react like this again_, he told himself. _You've got to get control. Do what Blair's always telling you to do. Breathe. Find your center_. "I…I was scared, Chief," he said softly. "I was scared that you were hurt, that I had hurt you. I just didn't know how to deal with that, so I got angry." He paused. "I'm sorry."

Blair still wouldn't look at him. "You won't listen. You never do."

Jim swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat and said, "I will this time, Chief, I promise." He reached out for the hand Blair had locked around the duffle straps, gently worked it loose so he could hold it. Christ, his hand was like ice.

Blair sighed. "It was the only way to counter their suggestion," he recited tonelessly, staring at the floor. "At first, I figured if I could make you see me, make you see I wasn't hurt, that that would interrupt their suggestion, snap you out of the hyper-rage. But I couldn't get it to work. So I had to try something else."

Blair stopped and sat, staring at the floor with dull eyes. Jim waited. He wanted to hold Blair, but his warning still echoed in Jim's head. Instead, he reached out and tugged gently on the picture frame still clutched tightly to Blair's chest. "How about giving up that picture, Chief?" he said gently.

Blair's eyes blazed and his arm tightened across his chest as he roared, "NO!"

Jim was taken aback. He had only meant for Blair to put the picture down, but Blair had responded as if he had suggested that he abandon his mother on an ice floe. _Well, that's a good sign_, Jim thought. _There's still some life in him. Now I just have to get to it_.

Blair continued in the same flat tone. "I couldn't get it to work. Seeing me in front of you didn't affect the suggestion at all. Then, just by accident, I stumbled on something that did work. Something that broke the conditioning – if I could get you to think _you_ had hurt me. It created a paradox – how you could be protecting me if you had hurt me – and eliminated the suggestion." He paused and took a shaky breath. "I didn't want to use it, but it was the only thing I could find…the only thing that broke the conditioning. So I gave you a suggestion to shoot me."

Another shaky breath. "I didn't want to…I…I knew you'd be angry, feel like I let you down, betrayed your trust again." His voice broke. "I…I knew you'd never forgive me, but…but I was so scared, after that night…" Jim could hear his heart galloping. Tears filled his eyes and trickled slowly down his cheeks. "…you were so _distant_, so detached…I didn't know how to get _through_ to you…I didn't think I could stop you if you really tried to hurt yourself…I didn't know what else to do…" He trailed off, staring at the ground, tears streaking his face.

"Ah, God, Blair," Jim groaned. Heedless of the consequences, he moved over to the couch and pulled the younger man into a tight embrace. "You didn't let me down. You never have. And I'm not angry, not now. I understand. You saved my life, Chief." He rubbed Blair's back gently, trying to calm him. The edge of the picture frame poked painfully into Jim's ribs, and he released his hold on Blair enough to slowly lever it out from between them and put it on the coffee table. This time Blair made no protest, but remained limp and quiet in Jim's arms. His heartbeat was still erratic, though, and he was still staring blankly at the floor.

Jim tightened his arms around Blair again, gently rocking him and stroking his hair. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "I'm so sorry. I should have trusted you; I should have asked you for help right from the start. You're my Guide, my partner, my lover, my best friend. There isn't anyone I trust more or depend on more." He slipped a hand under Blair's shirt and rubbed his back, trying to warm him. He was still so cold. "C'mon, babe," he whispered gently, "Come back to me. I love you. Don't leave me."

He held Blair for what seemed like an eternity, murmuring the comforting words over and over. Finally, he heard Blair's heartbeat settle into a steady, normal rhythm, and his skin warmed under Jim's fingers. His smell was returning to normal as well, the bitterness slowly fading. Relief washed through Jim. Blair sighed and rested his head on Jim's shoulder, grasping the front of his shirt with one hand. "Told you I'd get you to say it someday," he murmured softly, and promptly fell asleep.

Jim smiled then, as he suddenly realized that he hadn't had any difficulty at all saying those three little words. So much for conditioned reflexes, he thought smugly. Ellison 2, Pavlov 0.

He looked down at Blair, and was glad to see that the gray pallor was gone. However, his relief made him acutely aware that he was teetering on the edge of exhaustion himself. "C'mon, Chief, upstairs," he said, gently coaxing Blair awake.

He managed to rouse Blair enough so that he wasn't maneuvering a completely dead weight up the stairs, out of his clothes, and into bed. Blair looked like he was asleep even before his head hit the pillow. Jim barely managed to get out of his own clothes and curl up against Blair before succumbing to sleep himself.

* * *

Jim woke suddenly in the early morning hours from a dream of blood and gunshots. His senses registered the far-off sound of thunder, and then the gentle inhalation and exhalation of the man sleeping next to him. Before he could stop himself, he had slipped his hand under Blair's t-shirt, fingers seeking reassurance that Blair was alive, uninjured, whole; that his dream had been just that: a dream. 

He sighed and fell back to sleep with his ears and fingers tracking the steady, soothing beat of Blair's heart.

* * *

Blair was awakened by the sound of rain on the skylight. For a long while he lay still, processing yesterday's events in his mind. Finally he could no longer ignore his bladder. He got up, trying to make as little noise as possible, even though he knew it was a lost cause, and crept quietly downstairs to the bathroom. Returning to bed, he lay on his side and waited. He knew that Jim had woken up the moment he got out of bed. After a few minutes, Jim rolled over and spooned up against him. 

"I had the strangest dream," Blair said conversationally.

"What was it about?" Jim mumbled sleepily.

"Well, there was this cop with hyper-senses," he started, "but he attracted the attention of these government agents, who wanted to use him to do things for the government, rather than just helping average people."

"I bet the cop didn't like that much," Jim said, sounding more awake.

"No, he didn't. But the government agents were pretty insistent – well, actually, they were _telling_, not _asking_. But, fortunately, the plucky sidekick…" Blair was interrupted at this point by an explosive snort into the back of his neck.

"…_Plucky sidekick_?…"

"Yeah," Blair said, grinning, "the plucky sidekick came up with a plan to save the day."

"I'll bet it was a pretty good plan," Jim said, barely-suppressed laughter in his voice.

"It was okay – it was dangerous, and a little scary, and it didn't work exactly the way it was supposed to, but everything turned out okay in the end."

"Doesn't sound like the cop was much help. He sounds like the big, dumb, silent type."

"Oh, no, not dumb. Not dumb at all. Big, though. And sometimes silent. Sometimes silent when he needed to talk, and sometimes talking when he needed to be silent." Blair reached back and poked Jim in the ribs. "But his biggest flaw was that he was always fishing for compliments." He chuckled as Jim's hand came up and captured his. "Anyway, he wasn't supposed to help – it was his turn to be rescued. See, he had rescued the plucky sidekick from certain death any number of times, so it was the plucky sidekick's turn to rescue him." He sobered as Jim released his hand and spread his palm gently across the bruise on his chest.

"So what's the moral of this story, Chief?" Jim asked gently. "Love conquers all?"

"Nah. Too sappy. More like 'love endures'." He looked down at Jim's hand where it was resting on his chest and twined his fingers with Jim's, hugged their joined hands to his heart. "Or maybe, 'love survives'."

"'Love survives'. I like that," Jim said.

They lay quietly together, bodies curved to fit each other. Blair was listening to the rain and hovering pleasantly between sleep and wakefulness when Jim spoke. "You saved my life, you know," he said.

"Covered that," Blair replied drowsily. "Plucky sidekick, here."

"No," Jim replied quietly, his voice low but somehow intense, "I mean _that_ night. I couldn't go through with it. Because of you. I couldn't stop thinking about you, thinking about how you feel, how you smell, how you sound. Then I couldn't stop thinking about that day at the fountain. And how you would feel. If it were me."

Blair swallowed convulsively, fully awake now. Jim went on. "I think that's what made me come back to the cabin. At the time, I just thought I wanted to say goodbye. But now I think I came back because a part of me knew I wouldn't be able to do it, that I would be safe, because you were there." Blair felt the warm huff of Jim's breath on the back of his neck. "You've given up so much for me, Blair, and yet somehow you find more. And I…I don't know how…I don't know the right words for that. 'Thank you' just doesn't seem to cut it. But I love you, and I promise you that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that you never regret it."

Blair turned, mouth open to speak, but the sight of Jim with tears in his eyes unstrung him, and he was suddenly bereft of words. He wrapped his arms around Jim, and pulled him into a fierce embrace, burrowing his face into Jim's neck. Once his composure had returned, he tilted his head up and whispered in Jim's ear, "I love you. I'll do anything for you, you know that, right?" He felt Jim nod in response. He pulled slightly away, thumping lightly on Jim's chest with his fist for emphasis. "But I'll tell you this, James Ellison, if you ever - _ever_ - scare me like that again, I swear to God, I'll kick your ass".

Jim snorted and gave him a rueful look. "I think if you ever want to kick my ass, you're going to have to get in line after Connor." He told Blair what had happened after he had left the hospital.

Blair stared at him in astonishment. "You're kidding me! Megan? Slapped you?" He tried, and failed, to keep a grin from creasing his face. He saw the expression on Jim's face and tried to look solemn. "Sorry. Sorry. I know it's not funny, man. But, Megan…wow."

"I pretty much deserved it," Jim admitted. "She heard me yelling at you, being my usual idiotic self, reacting without thinking. Although by the time you left and she came in, I had the whole story." He described to Blair how his post-hypnotic suggestion had kicked in.

"And the primary suggestion, that's gone?" Blair asked. He rolled his eyes when Jim gave him a blank look. "You haven't even checked, man?" he said, exasperated.

"Well, it's not like I haven't had a few other things on my mind," Jim responded irritably. Blair watched as he got a faraway look in his eyes for a few seconds, and then he refocused on Blair's face. "Gone. No buzz, no hum, nothing."

"So everything worked," Blair mused, "just not exactly the way I planned it."

"Like you said, everything turned out okay in the end."

Blair nodded, still thinking. He glanced up at Jim in concern. The last two weeks had definitely taken their toll. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen Jim smile. He said aloud, "I'm surprised everything worked so well. Should have bothered to plant some more suggestions while I was at it."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "Like what?"

"Oh, like 'Stop hassling Blair about cleaning out the shower drain', or 'Ketchup is not a vegetable' or 'Let Blair be on top more often'. He was pleased to see Jim grin at this last.

"Well, I don't know about the first two, Chief, but I could definitely get behind the last one."

"No, see, that's the thing," Blair said, grinning, "you'd be in front, not behind…" He was cut off when Jim rolled onto his back, pulling Blair on top of him and kissing him deeply.

The phone rang downstairs. "Let it ring, let it ring," Blair pleaded, but Jim looked up at him ruefully.

"I'll bet it's Simon. He's probably a little worried about us, after last night. I'd better answer it, or the next thing you know we're going to have one concerned captain breaking into the loft."

Blair sighed in disappointment, but let Jim go, waving him towards the stairs. "Okay, okay…" No sooner had Jim answered the phone than Blair heard his cell phone ring. He jumped out of bed and hunted through the pile of clothes on the chair for the pants he had been wearing, dug his cell phone out of the pocket. "Hello?" he said.

"Sandy!" Megan's voice was sharp with concern. "Is everything okay? Where are you?"

Blair grinned. "Hi, Megan. Yeah, everything's fine. I'm at home."

"And…Jim's there, too?"

"Yeah, he's here, too. Everything's fine, Megan, honest."

"I'm really glad to hear that, Sandy." The relief in her voice was unmistakable. "You looked just awful when you left the hospital last night."

"Yeah," Blair said, "I know. Sorry to scare you like that. I…I was pretty upset at the time. But we got everything straightened out."

"Good," she said, her voice warm. "I told you it would be okay."

"Yeah, you were right. Thanks, Megan, for…for everything."

"No worries, mate. I'll see you at work tomorrow. Oh, and Sandy?" her voice colored slightly with embarrassment. "Uh…tell Jim I'm…well, just tell him I'm sorry."

"Okay, I'll pass that on," Blair replied, barely able to suppress the laughter in his voice as he hung the phone up.

Jim came up the stairs, smiling. "Simon says he's glad you're feeling better and if he never hears about government conspiracies again, it'll be too soon."

Blair grinned back at him. "Megan says if you don't take me to bed right now, she's going to come over here and slap you again."

Jim chuckled and moved smoothly onto the bed, pinning Blair between hands and knees and kissing him thoroughly. When they parted Blair said, breathlessly, "Hey, what happened to me being on top more often?"

"You're a talented guy, Chief," Jim replied. "Stage a coup or something."

* * *

Jim stretched his legs under the table, enjoying the dual pleasures of his first morning off in two weeks and the sports section of the Sunday paper. He folded the paper closed; as he did so Blair's hand, laden with a fresh mug of coffee, appeared in front of his eyes. He took the mug, murmuring thanks as he did so, and inhaled greedily. "Mmmm…smells good. What blend?" he asked. 

"You tell me," Blair replied cheerfully, turning one of the kitchen chairs around backwards and straddling it.

Jim rolled his eyes, but it was more to elicit a chuckle from Blair than out of any real irritation. He took another deep inhalation, sifting the layers of scent, and then took a careful sip. "Guatemala, for certain, and French Roast…and there's something else…" he took another sip, "…Kona, I think." He raised his eyebrows at Blair. "Am I right?"

"100 percent, man," Blair said, grinning, and lifting his own mug.

"That's not store-bought," Jim said sternly, "you made that yourself." Blair nodded. "Trying to trip me up, eh?"

"Just want to keep you on your toes, partner." He sat, arms akimbo across the top of the chair, fiddling with his mug.

"So what's up?" Jim asked. He had not failed to notice the sudden increase in Blair's heart rate as he sat down.

Blair smiled ruefully. "One of the drawbacks of living with a Sentinel…I can't hide anything from you." Jim smiled in return, but motioned with his hand as if to say, go on. Blair took a deep breath, looked up, and met Jim's eyes. "I don't think I want to be a cop," he said, slightly defiantly.

_Breathe, Ellison_, Jim told himself. _You're gonna breathe, and hear him out_. He unclenched his fingers from the sudden death grip they had on his coffee mug, met Blair's eyes, and nodded slowly. "Go on, I'm listening."

Blair raised an eyebrow - whether in surprise or admiration, Jim couldn't tell – and looked down into his coffee mug. "I just don't think…I'm not sure I can do this, not sure I'm cut out for it." He glanced over at Jim briefly, and then the coffee mug was on the table and Blair was up and pacing around the room. "I've just been so…so _frustrated_, over the past few months, with police work, with how decisions are made…in a way that I was so totally _not_ frustrated when I was working with you. Maybe it's because I was an observer then, I was outside, I wasn't really a part of it...but I don't think that's entirely it…" He trailed off, coming to rest in front of the doors to the balcony, running his hands through his hair. He sighed, and shook his head. "I don't think I'm explaining this well…"

Jim waited, trying not to react, giving Blair time to explain, in spite of the fact that his heart was knocking against his ribs. Blair sighed again, turned to face him. "The stuff we do, that feels good, that makes _sense_ to me. People do bad things and we stop them, we're…we're helping, we're protecting the tribe. Well, _you_ are, and I help…mostly...when I'm not getting in trouble myself." A slightly chagrined smile. "That's why I agreed to take the badge when you guys offered it to me. And even in Homicide, it still made sense. But then in Vice, and Narcotics…we take these people, who are so _hurt_, in so much misery and pain, and we arrest them, and take them to jail, and it just makes everything so much _worse_, and it's not doing _anything_ to help," his voice sank to a whisper, "and it doesn't…it doesn't feel good _at all_…" He trailed off again, turning to face the balcony and resting his forehead against the glass doors.

"Chief, I understand," Jim said softly.

"You do?"

"Yeah. I transferred _out_ of Vice, remember? I get it." He took a deep breath, tried to ignore the anxiety gnawing at his belly. This was not about him, this was about Blair and what he wanted for his life. "And, I think you're right. Maybe you're not suited to be a cop." Blair shot him a look that was half incredulity and half exasperation. "I'm not saying you wouldn't _be_ a good cop – hell, you already are. You've got great instincts, you think fast on your feet, you keep your cool in tense situations, and you understand people. But I've seen a lot of caring, compassionate people turn bitter and hard and cynical because of this job. I don't want that to happen to you."

"And you think it might, because I can't learn to distance myself?"

"I think it might, because you _can_ learn that. Maybe you shouldn't." Blair turned to look out over the balcony again, chewing his bottom lip. Jim stood up, picked up their coffee mugs, and walked over to him. He handed Blair his mug and steered him towards the couch, sitting down next to him. "So, what's the plan?" he asked.

Blair looked up at him from underneath his lashes, a half-smile on his face. "I've got a plan?"

"When do you not have a plan?" Jim retorted, smiling. When Blair didn't immediately respond, he pressed further. "You planning to quit the academy?"

"No, I am not," Blair said vehemently, "I am going to finish the damned academy because I've never quit anything in my entire life." Jim felt the familiar twinge of guilt at that, but Blair didn't seem to notice. He was absorbed in his coffee mug. "No, I was thinking that after I graduate from the academy I might…I might go back to school."

"Back to school?" Jim asked, nonplussed. "Where? Here in Cascade?"

"Well, yeah, Rainier, actually." Blair glanced up at Jim and then returned his attention to his coffee mug. "I didn't tell you this, because I didn't really think it would ever come to anything, but after the press conference, I was contacted by this attorney." He made a face. "Well, actually, I was contacted by a _lot_ of attorneys, but this one was different. She said that she had five other Rainier students who had had their privacy violated – professors posting their grades so they could be identified, the student health service releasing information to parents when the student was over 18 years old, that sort of thing – and she was planning to file a class action suit against Rainier on their behalf for civil rights violations. She wanted to add me to the suit, and I said it was okay. She said I didn't have to do anything, except maybe give a deposition, but it was unlikely." He glanced up at Jim apologetically. "I didn't say anything to you about it, because I didn't want to get your hopes up, and I was trying not to think about it, because I didn't really want to get my hopes up either. Anyway, she called me the other day and said that Rainier agreed to settle. So I can be reinstated."

Jim felt a huge grin spread across his face. It felt like a 10-pound weight had been removed from his belly. "Chief, that's great!"

Blair grinned happily back at him. "Yeah. Only I'm pretty sure I don't want to go back to the Anthropology Department. Still a lot of hard feelings there…on both sides."

"So, what, then?"

"Well, I was thinking, after all this, that I might go back and get my doctorate in Psychology. Rainier's got a pretty good department, and so I could keep riding with you as my practicum placement, and then, once I graduated, I'm sure I could get hired on in some capacity so I could keep working as your partner, at least part-time…" He stopped as Jim looked at him with surprise.

"You…you still want to be my partner?"

Blair stared at him, mouth open. "Well, yeah, of course. What did you think?"

"I thought that when you said you didn't want to be a cop…" Jim trailed off.

Blair put his hand on Jim's arm. "Jim, man, I _never_ meant that I didn't want to be your partner. That's the _only_ thing I want, the only thing I've _ever_ wanted. I just want to figure out how to do it without actually being a cop." He stopped and chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "That is, if you're okay with being partners with someone who's not actually a cop. And it might just be part-time, 'cause I'll have classes again…and if I got hired on at the department I'd probably have some other duties…"

Jim grinned in relief, and pulled Blair onto his lap. "Sandburg, I don't care what else you do during the day, as long as your ass is in my bed every night," he replied, sliding his hands down Blair's hips and giving the part under discussion an appreciative squeeze.

"Oh, well, screw this school thing, then. I think I saw an ad in the classifieds…I think that new strip club downtown is looking for male dancers…"

As Jim tickled Blair in order to get the classified ads away from him, he decided that he had been wrong. He was finally getting some of that karmic payback after all.


End file.
